Four days closer to summer vacation, but who's counting?

In all honesty I seriously considered putting my teacher face away for good this year. It was a little traumatic to end last year not having smiled. I would check myself every time my smile reflexes kicked in to make sure I was in an appropriate smiling location. I really don't want to go back to that. Anyway I geared myself up to be the laid back, easy going, math/japanese teacher this year. That lasted until Monday night, when I panicked. I went into my classroom on day one and I meant business, and I was secretly thrilled at how easily the freshmen scared this year. Is that mean? So, while I do plan to keep the fear in my students, I'm going to try to find a balance between the teacher face and the face and the me that I like to be.

My students seem better behaved this year. Life seems easier. I'm going to go ahead and knock on wood because I've been informed that many students are still on vacation and will come back looking for any school that will accept them. We generally have auditions to get into our school, but because enrollment is so low this year the city is going to make us take the random kids. Does it surprise anyone that the kids who will need extra help just happen to be the same kids whose parents don't feel any rush to get them enrolled school before the second week?

I sat at my desk the second day and I'll tell you I was beaming. I'm not exactly sure why I was so happy. I'm still pretty thrilled about my situation. The future is bright. Blue skies are smiling at me and all that jazz. My situation is pretty sweet. My schedule doesn't start until 9 and I don't teach until 10. I only have two preps and since I taught the math last year my lesson plans just need a little tweaking. The students appear younger and more malleable. My freshmen are seniors. And I've decided that this is my last year. How's that? Life is good. I'm highly motivated to make this the best year ever!