1st Official Day at Work

There was a Data Retreat for my school district today. The meeting started at 745am... and despite the fact that I believe I am a morning person, that was a bit early since it was an hour drive from my house.

The retreat went really well. I saw so many familiar faces and had just the warmest reception by so many old friends and co-workers. It was both fun and frustrating to get back into the action of looking at data - test scores, surveys, etc, and facing the ever changing standards and laws (literally, like shooting at a moving target) and working collegially with 9 other teachers and principals from my building.

I possess an extremely high level of anxiety right now over my classroom preparation. I'm trying to tell myself that things will fall into place as I take each task on - but the overwhelming sense of fear stemming from the fact that I have not taught any of these three subjects combined with the (I'm sure irrational) thought that I've completely forgot how to teach or even just related to people is deafening. I must say, however, that some former students ran into me in the hallway and were elated to see me and said so, and expressed how much they either missed me or were glad I was back, and that did help alleviate my fears a bit. It's amazing how much in life we fear is completely non-existent and is just created in our heads.

On the way home, I stopped at Kris Mumm's house for a little BBQ. The Cherry's, including little Juliet, and Maura and Steve were there, as well as Mumm's boyfriend Jason. SO fun to hang with those crazy mouthy kids. NEVER a dull moment in their company. The 'inappropriate car' and summer friends are on again.