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    It is my intention to participate in this month's Teacher Challenge, a professional development program of sorts, supported by Edublogs.  The Challenge will offer a month's worth of activities to help bloggers increase their readership, improve their posts, and learn from other edubloggers all over the world.  I have such a busy month ahead, I hope I can keep up.  I'm certainly going to try. 

    I never knew when I got into teaching that the profession would involve so much self-reflection.  Teachers like to think about how things are going and how things can be better in their classrooms and in their schools.  When I was a first-year teacher more than twenty years ago, my school sent me to a new teachers retreat.  I was working in New York City, and this conference was in a very small, very rural town called Rensselaer, New York, not too far from Albany. The conference center sat in the middle of nothing, in the middle of nowhere.  Literally.  The rooms were bare and poorly lit.  No TVs, either.  At night, I felt like Kyle McLaughlin in Twin Peaks.  I fully expected to open my eyes at three in the morning to see a giant at the foot of my bed. 

    But by the end of my three days there, the sterility and starkness of the room made some sense to me.  When not distracted by TV and telephone calls and mini bars, all I did for three days was reflect, reflect, reflect.  I thought about why I had chosen to become a teacher and how I was interacting with my students and where I hoped my career would take me.  Turns out, the conference was one of the best I've ever attended.  I went back to Manhattan feeling profoundly tranquil and thankful to have had the time to turn so much over in my mind.

    Today, the Teacher Challenge asks me to reflect on my life as a blogger.  And I see this as kind of a privilege.  What writing this post and writing this blog in general has made me realize is that I have the time and desire to do this self-reflection.  Teaching is clearly a profession that requires self-reflection, and every time I write a post, I'm doing that, even if it's not a conscious act.  I may appear to be writing a book review or a piece about a tech tool, but what I'm really doing is furthering my understanding of myself: How do I relate to others? What am I hoping to accomplish? What am I really saying here?

    But I have not been consistent about posting, at least, not for several months.  I suppose having cancer and needing major surgery last fall is a pretty good excuse.  I'm healthy now, yet I still haven't returned to posting regularly.  Often, I start a post and suddenly feel like I have nothing to say.  Or I feel that I have nothing original to add to the conversation and I'm just going to be repeating what someone wiser (and with many more readers) has already said.  I get discouraged sometimes, feeling like a very small pebble on a road that is very, very long. I'm hoping that this Challenge will help me overcome some of these doubts I have about my own capabilities.

    Blogging has been good for me.  I always wanted to be a writer, and now I am writing, if only occassionally.  I think I'm building up to something, though.  I realize that I have plenty to say when I

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RJinx once rescued me from the Titanic.  True story.

Faceboook, 7:30AM: I have 15 hours stretching ahead of me that require strenuous physical activity, mind-numbing patience, and an endless supply of energy and positive attitude. It's going to be tough, but I can do it. (Right?) Feel free to contribute support, jokes, funny comments, and/or tequila.
                RJinx: Hey, you must be a parent. ;-)
                Look at it like surfing.
                Just ride the wave.
                If you fight against it you will drown yourself
                and keep yourself from getting where you need/want to be.
                If you just ride the wavy and
                let its energy guide you, you will reach the shore....
                namaste, grasshopper.
       

8:50 AM: Pick up Bluejay, a 10-yr-old student who is not my biological child.
8:54 AM: See cop lights flashing quietly behind me.
                ME: Good morning, officer.
                Nice, slightly hot OFFICER: I pulled you over for speeding back there. Um, did you know you were going 53 in a 40 zone? Do you have any reason to need to go that fast?
                ME: Um,  no good reason.
                OFFICER: Well, I'm going to let you off but I will need to see your license, insurance and registration.
                ME: Of course, of course. (rummaging in the Car That Vommited VBS Supplies) Um, I'm afraid I can't find my registration.
                OFFICER: Okay, well, sit tight, let me check this out.
                (minutes pass)
                OFFICER: Well, it seems as though your insurance card isn't current. See here? It says expires 2009.
                ME: Oh, well, that's just the card. The insurance is current.
                OFFICER: Thing is, I do have to give you a ticket for that.
                ME: Of course, I understand.
               (minutes pass)
               OFFICER: Did you realize your driver's license is expir

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I'm a moody person.  Stop, I know.  You're shocked.  I can be joyous and jubilant one day and in doldrums the next.  It's how I roll.*  Not only do I find myself, on this rainy Sunday afternoon, post-birthday, but also post-blog-party and post-morning-with-my-students (today's sermon: "Celebrating Harry Potter: Spiritual Seeing & Living" by the Rev. Keith Thompson.)  

I start to question everything when I get lonely: the meaning of life, my own self-worth, the authenticity of my relationships, the unfairness of some people being this beautiful, and the all around strangeness that is people's obsession with True Blood **


By tomorrow I'll be okay again, of course.  For now, I'm going to go do something totally self-indulgent. I know you're going to be jealous.



I'm going to go hit Sephora.  If you haven't heard from me in three weeks, send the search parties there.



*That one's for you, Travis.



** Come on. Sookie Stackhouse as a name? Seriously? And Stephen Moyer? Could we get a less attractive vampire? And....no I haven't read or seen any of the series.  I guess it can't be worse than Twilight.

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