Stretching

Just over half-way through December, I have already matched my November visitor count and am a short stretch away from matching my all-time high. I don't know what I did, but someone out there is paying more attention. Welcome, whoever you are!

I've been slim on the heavy deep stuff lately. I know that's what you really come here for, my post-collegiate musings, insights, and quips about life, the universe, and everything, and I am terribly sorry to have been letting you down in the last week or so. The thing is, it's "that time of year", when everyone's brain starts to shut down and motivation plummets. I'm not just talking about the students here, I include the teachers. Frankly, I think it's the teachers especially who are eying that break that's only three days away. The kids have been coasting since last week. Many since Thanksgiving. Or September.

Being quite near the end of my first semester of teaching, I'm getting a little retrospective and self-evaluative, and I'm comfortable with how I've done so far. It has not been a Hollywood-inspirational-life-altering kind of first year, but I wasn't expecting it to be. I'm also okay with my current indifference to... everything, because it took me this whole time to get to hit that "wall", whereas some of my peers from my graduating class hit it a while ago. Some of my coworkers, talented and devoted educators though they are, are visibly smacking their heads right along with me, and many more are doing so covertly.

I'm literally in the home-stretch, just four days from being home for more than a week, and I'm eying noon on Thursday (when we shove the kids out the door) like a suburban mom eying a sale on breakfast cereal. My students can expect me to be a little punchy, and you, Dear Readers, can do the same.

For the record, though, I love my job, and I love you.