As the current school year wanes I have been contemplating some rather odd emotions that seem to arise at bizarre moments. One not so foreign emotion for this time of year is naturally ecstasy. No matter how many last days of school I experience I doubt I will ever lose the feeling of knowing that for 3 uninterrupted months I am free -- from responsibility (sort of), worry (kind of) and stress. Now that I am the teacher the summer is even better -- the paychecks arrive regardless of my presence at the building. It's quite remarkable.
The two emotions that have caused me to ponder have been nostalgia and fear. I expect to feel nostalgic as my students leave my nest and move onto bigger and better things. Yet it suprises me to what extent I am plagued by this nostalgia. I am the teacher that begins the countdown for summer in August -- on the first day of school. So it baffles the mind that when the last day is staring me down I find myself wishing the hours would slow down ever so slightly so I could relish in all that is wonderful, so that I could spend just a little more time with the wonderful people with whom I have had the privilege of acquainting myself. I genuinely will miss all of them...and I worry that next year won't be quite the same. I have often wondered if those in the "professional" world (there is a difference between "professional" and "educational" -- I have never been able to understand the distinction -- am I not a professional? are professionals not educated?) ever feel the same nostalgia when a large project is finalized.
The big "F" word is the one emotion that has caused me the greatest distress: FEAR. While not a veteran by any standard, I have made it past the breaking point for most educators; I will begin my 4th year in the fall. Suddenly now, as I toss away the papers I swore I would file and now can't remember why I saved them, I am struck with an almost crippling fear. Will I do as good a job next year? Do I even remember what I am supposed to teach? What did I say the first day of school that made me so intimidating? Every teacher knows that classes and school years take on a life of their own -- each one unique and never quite duplicated. I suppose this is what frightens me most: I had a wonderful year that seemed (for the most part) to be a success -- what if I can't re-create that success?
Consequently I will do what every good teacher does...I will take my uninterrupted 3 months of vacation and willfully interrupt it with professional development, syllabus revision and course planning -- all in an effort to ensure a successful school year. For better or worse, this is the life of an educator.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
The big news...
I want to publish this post NOW -- the date it is penned -- but if you are reading it, then it must be June. Guess what?? WE ARE PREGNANT!! This baby is a total and complete surprise; Luke and I are so excited, bewildered, and a little overwhelmed. I always thought that the giddiness that accompanied the news of Jack's pregnancy would repeat with each subsequent pregnancy but that hasn't happened. Both Luke and I are stunned by our general serenity. Yes we are excited but the sense of urgency that came with Jack is not present. It is a bizarre feeling -- to know that we are preparing for another life and yet are calm and relaxed about the entire thing.
Unfortunately that is not all that is different about my two pregnancies. While I was tired with Jack I was never sick. This pregnancy has brought the concept of "morning sickness" to the forefront of my pregnancy repertoire. All this means that in addition to being tired because I am the mommy of a toddler, I am exhausted beyond all reason with the pregnancy sleeps and I am nauseous about 18 out of 24 hours a day. The cruel joke is that I'm starving -- nothing tastes good and nothing makes me feel better. Oh what we do for the littlest ones!
So it is with this post that I say farewell to soft cheese, lunchmeat, Venti lattes from Starbucks and say hello to Tums! Here is to a very adventurous 40 weeks (and yes we will make it this time!!).
Unfortunately that is not all that is different about my two pregnancies. While I was tired with Jack I was never sick. This pregnancy has brought the concept of "morning sickness" to the forefront of my pregnancy repertoire. All this means that in addition to being tired because I am the mommy of a toddler, I am exhausted beyond all reason with the pregnancy sleeps and I am nauseous about 18 out of 24 hours a day. The cruel joke is that I'm starving -- nothing tastes good and nothing makes me feel better. Oh what we do for the littlest ones!
So it is with this post that I say farewell to soft cheese, lunchmeat, Venti lattes from Starbucks and say hello to Tums! Here is to a very adventurous 40 weeks (and yes we will make it this time!!).
A trip to Leakey and thoughts of history
This weekend my family will be embarking on our annual pilgrimage to West Texas -- Leakey, Texas to be more exact. It is time for the Welch family reunion. No, I'm not a Welch, neither are my parents or grandparents. But my great-grandmother has a sister who married a Welch and then proceeded to have 11 children (10 of whom made it to adulthood). The entire gang, including my great-grandmother when she was living, treks to the hills of West Texas; in essence we return home. It's kind of like salmon going up stream to their birthplace to spawn...except no one dies...and I don't want to think about spawning...
I always approach the trip with a bit of trepidation -- not because I fear the folks that I will see but rather because inevitably from my time in the mountains a different Valerie blooms. My accent thickens, I lose my distaste for "creepy-crawlies", and I relish the smell of the grass after the rains. Why the trepidation? My only reason is because Leakey, Texas and its surrounding areas are my home, despite the fact that I have never lived there. I think there is a small part of me that worries one day I will make the drive up there never to return.
This brings me to another interesting point -- that a place I have never actually resided in seems like home to me. That's the beauty of the place though -- I am in essence returning to the place of my forefathers -- and some how I recognize that fact. My grandfather was born up there -- in Sabinal to be exact. This tidbit has always made me a bit nostalgic about the area, but it wasn't until I had the privilege of traveling the road from Houston to Leakey with Bill Evans that I truly appreciated the idea of returning home. I expected like any other over-confident college freshman that the trip with my grandparents would be boring...full of useless driving advice and lots of snoring. The journey was much more than that -- it was a journey into my grandfather's past and thus my own. My grandfather spun tales for the 5 hours that we journeyed -- pointing out landmarks that no historical society was even aware and telling stories of people and familes long gone. The most amazing thing was how well, after all the years he had been gone, he could tell the change of the counties by the passing landscape -- landscape that to me, the untrained eye, looked all the same. I consider this trip with my grandfather to be one of the highlights of my life -- he died two years later. I had the invaluable experience of learning about my past, about my family's past, about my state's history, about just THE PAST.
Bill Evans passed on all of his wisdom and values and anecdotes via a lost art in our society -- oral tradition. I recently read an essay by Momaday entitled "The Way to Rainy Mountain" -- the author, a Native American, re-lived an experience similar to my own. The essay was touted as an excellent example of the oral tradition of Native American people. While true that histories like the Momaday piece are vital, it seems to me that more importantly are the personal oral traditions -- the ones that will never be published in a book, that will never be recorded for public posterity. These traditions are the very things that give us all our roots -- and everyone knows that the stronger the root system the stronger the tree that grows. It is my hope to give these roots to Jack and his children -- stories of my life, my parents' life, my grandparents' life and stories of the train that swept off the track from the torrential rains in Uvalde county back when Bill Evans was a young man.
I always approach the trip with a bit of trepidation -- not because I fear the folks that I will see but rather because inevitably from my time in the mountains a different Valerie blooms. My accent thickens, I lose my distaste for "creepy-crawlies", and I relish the smell of the grass after the rains. Why the trepidation? My only reason is because Leakey, Texas and its surrounding areas are my home, despite the fact that I have never lived there. I think there is a small part of me that worries one day I will make the drive up there never to return.
This brings me to another interesting point -- that a place I have never actually resided in seems like home to me. That's the beauty of the place though -- I am in essence returning to the place of my forefathers -- and some how I recognize that fact. My grandfather was born up there -- in Sabinal to be exact. This tidbit has always made me a bit nostalgic about the area, but it wasn't until I had the privilege of traveling the road from Houston to Leakey with Bill Evans that I truly appreciated the idea of returning home. I expected like any other over-confident college freshman that the trip with my grandparents would be boring...full of useless driving advice and lots of snoring. The journey was much more than that -- it was a journey into my grandfather's past and thus my own. My grandfather spun tales for the 5 hours that we journeyed -- pointing out landmarks that no historical society was even aware and telling stories of people and familes long gone. The most amazing thing was how well, after all the years he had been gone, he could tell the change of the counties by the passing landscape -- landscape that to me, the untrained eye, looked all the same. I consider this trip with my grandfather to be one of the highlights of my life -- he died two years later. I had the invaluable experience of learning about my past, about my family's past, about my state's history, about just THE PAST.
Bill Evans passed on all of his wisdom and values and anecdotes via a lost art in our society -- oral tradition. I recently read an essay by Momaday entitled "The Way to Rainy Mountain" -- the author, a Native American, re-lived an experience similar to my own. The essay was touted as an excellent example of the oral tradition of Native American people. While true that histories like the Momaday piece are vital, it seems to me that more importantly are the personal oral traditions -- the ones that will never be published in a book, that will never be recorded for public posterity. These traditions are the very things that give us all our roots -- and everyone knows that the stronger the root system the stronger the tree that grows. It is my hope to give these roots to Jack and his children -- stories of my life, my parents' life, my grandparents' life and stories of the train that swept off the track from the torrential rains in Uvalde county back when Bill Evans was a young man.
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