Looking Alive

School portraits arrived yesterday. Last year I looked...tired, and somewhat distant (my brother said stoned, which is obvious not true, because this isn't Colorado). I was surviving, but very well worn and tired—and that was only 5 weeks in!

This year I actually look alive, happy, and even vibrant (questionable word choice, I know). The students who suddenly yelled "SMILE MR. FULLER!" probably helped. Regardless I consider the picture a measure of progress. I will not be mounting it on  my living room, classroom, or bedroom wall, however. Seeing myself every morning in the mirror is enough trama for one day, and there isn't anyone who would want to have my picture anyway. Which is alright, as I cannot blame them.

This Friday is the end of the first quarter. Eighth grade is getting their first real taste of the upper school faculty, with four tests this week. I was going to make it a paper but decided the test was easier on them, not to mention easier for me to grade over the weekend. They'll have plenty of other opportunities, I'm sure. Overall they aren't as bright as last year's class, so I'm having to slow down, focus on routine and repetition, and in general treat them more like the eighth graders they are (and remember that the eighth graders I saw in May of last year had were a full year ahead of the eighth graders I started this year with. There is hope.).

A timeline is slowly going up in my room, I have been meaning to make one since my last observation but befuddled by placement and location. Three thousand years of history is a lot to spread on the walls, flowing around corners, beams, and pull-down projector screens. Hopefully it will all come together, though I will have to relocate my Medieval Maps & Art wall to make way for American History (cue the Constitution!).

In time, in time, school has such a funny sense of time--class periods come, pass, bell, laughter in the hall way, dismissal, grading, planning, cramming for exams, teaching class without a lesson plan, desperation to fit material in as more and more class days are whittled away by events and sports and Christmas concert rehearsals, school pictures...

Into the desk drawer the picture goes. Perhaps I should send it to Grandma.