Working Woman

I have successfully navigated my way back into full time teaching.  It was not a pretty or graceful transition, but it was successful nonetheless.  I was nervous the first day, as expected.  Not expected was the car ride home.  I believe I was suffering from sensory overload.  Seven hours under fluorescent lights surrounded by constant teenage noise and bodies did not do my body good.  I had so much anxiety trying to come down from the day that I spent most of the night vomiting in the bathroom.  (I told you it wasn't pretty.)  I convinced myself that I made the absolute worst decision of my life and I was locked into it until June.

Flash forward three weeks and maybe it wasn't the worst decision.  It's definitely doable.  Week two was complete exhaustion; week three not much better, but better...a little.  So, yeah, maybe I can get through to June, and yeah, maybe I can return permanently to teaching.  I'll somehow have to figure out how to sleep without taking Z-Quil.  Bottom line is that it's teaching.  It's all the the crap that teachers have to deal with, but it's not quite as bad as the crap that I dealt with at my old schools.  It's a nice, small district with relatively good kids.  

Sadly, my January challenge of ten Julia Childs's recipes didn't even get started let alone completed, but I'm going easy on myself.  Returning to work and surviving it (not something I thought I'd do that first night hanging over the toilet in the middle of the night) was challenge enough.  I have continued my ongoing reading challenge.  For the month of January I picked up The DaVinci Code.  This is an unusual book for me to choose as a favorite.  It's "action and adventure" and very Indiana Jones-esque (not my thing at all).  I think the fact that half the book takes place in Paris and the other half takes place in London was the draw.  It's a very intriguing topic, too, with the ancient secret groups and the "real" holy grail.  I read the illustrated edition that provides pictures of the artwork and architecture referenced in the book, some of which I have seen in person, is another factor in enjoying the book.

I plan on starting a new reading challenge for the next twelve months in February, when I started this past reading challenge.  For now, I'm rereading To Kill a Mockingbird.  It's funny because I often picked this book up in the past year to reread, but put it back on the shelf for something else.  The reason I finally settled on it two nights ago, just one week before my reading challenge is to end, had nothing to do with the challenge at all.  I'm going to be teaching it.  I'm taking this sort of as a sign that somehow this tiny part of my life, this reading challenge, this thing that's in many ways driven this past year, inspired me to start this blog and try other challenges, is now very strongly connecting to this new part of my life, a very big part of my life.  

I've been feeling God's hand at work a lot in the past three weeks.  As difficult as what this has been, I feel as though I've been waiting for a door to open and this is it.  Whether it be the job that lasts forever or a lesson to show me what I need to do for the rest of my life, it's clear I need to be there now.