Back to life.

So, the summer's gone. We moved into our new place, which is fabulous. I went to Hawaii, which was fabulous. Ronnie got married and her wedding was fabulous. And I've been running full speed for so many weeks in a row that I think I'm gonna crash. It's been happy busy though, and I've no room to complain at all.

School started without incident. I'm thrilled about the transformation that occurred in my school over the summer! It's the same place, with mostly the same people, but everything seems so organized this year. The beginning of last year was horrible. We didn't get class rosters until the first day of school and even then they changed daily for the first two weeks. My rosters haven't changed and I got them before the first day. We got a new AP Security and he's cracking the whip. A functional school is a really happy prospect.

I'm mostly teaching the same things that I taught last year, and my classes top out at 33 as opposed to the 39 from last year. I'm giving this no smiling thing the old college try. They told me in the beginning not to smile until Thanksgiving. I thought they were being overly cautious. They weren't. You have to use the teacher face constantly or you're toast. Here's to the teacher face.

Also, here's to Rosh Hashanna creating a 4 day weekend for NYC school teachers. Costa Rica here I come. I like to imagine that I'm a selfless person who became a teacher to change the world, but sadly, I think the truth is that I work only to afford to travel and the vacation schedule of a teacher cannot be beat. At least I don't think it can. Maybe I should look a little harder:)