Success

Caleb and I met several former coworkers today for lunch. I thought we were doing pretty well. We left on time. I fed Caleb peas, broccoli and prunes without getting any of it on my shirt. I filled my plate at a Chinese buffet while holding Caleb without spilling either my food or Caleb. I ate one-handed while holding Caleb since they didn't have any booster seats. Caleb handed out plenty of smiles even though he really wanted to get down on the dirty floor and crawl around. Caleb only pulled off his pants once. I had a lot of fun catching up with friends. Then I came home and found food in my teeth. Smooth.

Time as a Commodity

What's worth my time? What's my time worth?

I began thinking about these questions as I was cleaning out and organizing my teaching files. In an effort to not store boxes of papers that I'll never look at again, I've been consolidating the numerous lesson plans, units, student papers, articles, and other teaching related papers that I've saved over the past few years. Now I have most of my teaching units in nice, neat 3-ring binders so if I ever teach Animal Farm or Romeo and Juliet or my other units again, I don't have to start from scratch, and I won't have to search through boxes of papers to find my ideas. I also came across a unit I developed in college. The thing has to be at least 300 pages. As I look at it now, I will probably never teach that unit, but somehow I just could not throw it away. Those papers represent the only all-nighter I had to pull in college. They represent hours upon hours digging through the stacks in the ISU library. They show how I chose to spend a lot of time during the last month before student teaching. During my senior year, I decided it was worth my time to spend hours in the library, in front of my computer, and with my classmates to create this teaching unit that I will never use. Granted, that unit earned me a passing grade, which contributed to a college degree, which contributed to a teaching license, which contributed to a teaching job...and so forth. How did I decide that developing that unit was worth that much time? What from all my time spent teaching over the past few years will have any lasting worth? Why did I feel it was important to spend my time organizing my lesson plans and recycling old papers this past week? Is it worth my time to write this blog?

Time is a commodity I spend all too easily. How would I spend my time if I budgeted my time as carefully as I budget my money? What would my days (and nights) look like if I truly considered the lasting value of the activities I chose to do?

Lasts

Today was my last day of work, and I'm really glad I knew it would be my last because it helped me to celebrate. I celebrated not only that I get to move on to something new, but also that I was able to have this amazing teaching job for several years. In many ways, I had my dream job this past year.

I celebrated by...
...not writing any demerit slips.
...joking around more with students, which I don't do often enough. This was probably aided by the fact that I didn't get much sleep last night. So when one student came into work on his poster project this morning and needed tape, I offered him "scotch," which typically would mean I wanted to lose my job. For more poor "teacher" humor, call...
...taking more time out of my day to chat with co-workers. I work with some really great people. And besides that, they're really good at the whole teaching thing.

Talk about a party, huh? So maybe it was more that I was celebrating, even as I did the usual--taking attendance, collecting papers, grading papers, recording grades, redirecting students, giving instructions, etc. But it was a fun day--a day of lasts that makes me wonder how much of it will last.

What's in a name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." This is the famous quote from Act 2 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet in which Juliet justifies and excuses herself for falling in love with one of her family’s enemies—a Montague. What she’s saying is that it doesn’t matter what his name is; it doesn’t matter that her parents wouldn’t trust him with her life or that the Capulets and Montagues have reputations for not getting along. What matters is that she’s known him for a few short hours, and in that time he’s proven that he “kisses by the book” and can give a fair compliment (“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?/ It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”). He’s proven that he can make her heart flutter and her lips tingle. No, his name doesn’t matter.

Obviously, I disagree. Names do matter. I go by Deborah because I think Debbie sounds ditzy (and I don’t want to give the wrong impression) and Deb makes me think of someone generations older than I am. (Besides that fact, Deb also reminds me of a girl named Wi from Thailand that continually called me Debdeb, and so anytime someone calls me Deb I have a reverberating “Debdeb” fly through my head.) Of course this discussion of names and roses quickly turns into a highly theoretical discussion. Would we have girls walking around with the name “Turnip” if someone had decided to call a sweet-smelling flower by that name instead of “rose”? However the origins of various words come about, words and names do have meanings. And that is why “Rose” is a girl’s name and “Turnip” is not.

Just think of all the meanings associated with the names of God. Immanuel. Messiah. I Am. Creator. Almighty. Lord. Master. Savior. Prince. Son. Name above all names.

Lately my homeroom students have been pestering me about what we’ll name our son. Since we’ve decided not to disclose the name until we know for sure that he’s a boy, I don’t tell them the actual name. But it sure is fun to see their reactions to names like Eusebius, Erasmus, and Tybalt. Their reactions somewhat prove my point.