Who the hell am I?

I am a teacher which must make me grown. I mean 150 people put their kids in my hands everyday so that I can mold them into something.. what? I am not certain. The apparent belief is they will leave my class knowing more than they came with... Which is prolly true. I do drop a little knowledge here and there... But I also am still just a child. Sometimes I skip down the hallway and then I feel like an asshole.. but I wanna skip. I have waaaay too much energy to expend to walk sometimes.. I listen to Sexyback and Ring the Alarm during my planning periods and I love it... the kids come in and ask me to please leave the music on.. and then I have to act like I dont wanna listen to it anymore even though I do... I have to teach things I dont think are interesting and end fun conversations because I am supposed to be teaching them about other stuff... it sucks... I have an apartment and I pay mad bills... I am on my own. officially. And that feels great. As scary and stressful as I can be at times.. I must admit there is a freedom knowing that it's all about me most of the time... I dont have anyone expecting anything from me or checking on me.. if I wanna go out I do.. if I wanna stay in I do.. and that's love.

I should be asleep right now but every Sunday I get excited for the week. I get excited to walk into the classroom and enjoy the chaos of hundreds of kids in the hallways, shirts untucked, pants below their waists hoping that this might be the day when we are not checking for dresscode. I enjoy the sound of kids laughing rambunctiously in the hallway not caring what time class starts cause they are enjoying each other for the moments that they have.. and knowing I have to get their little behinds in my classroom cause if they are late then it's my problem to deal with... I enjoy setting high expectations for my students because that is what they deserve. I expect alot of them.. I cannot demand it, but I know that all of my students are capable of learning, knowing and using the material that I teach to make them better people. They are fabulous... and sometimes I feel like I am just one of them... but I am not one of them.. i am supposed to be the adult.. after all, I am in charge... and I think it works...

Tomorrow is 9/11 and I dont wanna teach, I want to spend the time talking with my students about how fundamentally the US has changed... not day to day but just a change in the language, a change in the feel.. a new stress in the air that we didnt have to deal with when I was their age... I am going to tell them where I was, what I thought, what i felt on that day because at 19... my experience was much different than theirs, just turning 7 five years ago. I hope they see that history is important because what seems like the past now is so much apart of people's reality all the time. In 100 years there will be great great grandchildren who still understand that 9/11 took away brave members of their families who just went to work one day and didnt come home.. who rushed into the building to save others yet didnt make it out themselves... They will know how real the pain was because the story will be told again and again.. it will not just be in history books because this is the US and will not forget the day the face of foreign evil changed our lives.

Yet still i wonder who am I.. I see myself in the face of the students and I see myself in their parents too.. wanting to be the best, wanting the best of them, finding things funny that I shouldnt and waiting for the bell rings so I can talk to my friends in the hall.. though my gossipping is done with other teachers.

I know who I am because I know that I love teaching so much.. I love it more and more each day and think that it'll just fill me for years.. as hard as it is.. and as tired as i get.. i still work to do the best for my students because they deserve it.

:-D