Ramblings of a Thirty-Something

 This has been a hard week. Ask any teacher. For some of us, it has been the worst week we've had in education ever. No one has any answers to any questions. No one knows if what we are doing is right or wrong. No one is getting even close to the amount of support they need. I didn't even know what my students looked like  until we took an outdoor mask break. All I had seen were their eyes.  My post last week is still valid. I'm still excited that we are starting school in person. I'm still excited to meet my new students and get to know them. I'm still excited to see last year's kiddos in the hallway and get back to collaborating with my amazing teacher team and support staff. But damn, it's been a hard week. I could go on and on about the heartbreaking aspects of this week, but I don't know that I can emotionally afford to do that. So I'm going to use something that did happen in my classroom as a jumping off point.  My students were filling in the

 I'll let you in on a little secret:  I'm excited to go back to school. Now, I know what you're thinking. Surely this is a typo and she meant to say "terrified" or "depressed" or "frustrated."  And I'll tell you another secret:  I am also all of those things.  But I am  excited! Do I have a million questions? Yes, of course I do. Do I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat after having a work-related nightmare? Yes. Does it worry me that I don't actually know what this is going to look like? Absolutely! But no one knows what this is going to look like . We can plan {and we're teachers, so we loooove planning}, we can strategize, we can educate ourselves, we can try to foresee the issues so we can be ready at the drop of a hat when something changes, as it absolutely will--more than once. If you really think about it, we never really know what the school year is going to look like. Sure, we have a bit of a templ

One of my favorite things in the world is when a book I love is turned into a film or series. It's also one of my least favorite things. I'm sure every book lover has the exact same Jekyll-Hyde thing going on in their own minds. You get excited that someone else loves the text as much as you and possesses the resources to bring it to the screen. You cannot wait to see the costumes, hear the score, experience the sets as more than just an abstract concept in your mind.  But sometimes they cast an actor who, in your humble opinion, just does not do the character justice. Or they skip parts of the book {for the sake of time, usually} that are actually really important. Or {horror of horrors!} they change things! Names and backstories and pivotal scenes are re-imagined {Yara Greyjoy, for example, doesn't exist in the books. Her name is Asha. Still don't know why they felt the need to change it}.  Sometimes, when the author is a part of the process, I find it easier to swa