In the next 10 years, assuming we haven't destroyed one another, the leaves will still change in the fall. The snow will fall (hopefully), and the seasons will change.
The one thing that will be different, from my perspective is, I will be retired. I've been teaching the hormonally schizophrenic (otherwise known as middle school students) for 34 years. I started out teaching in Buena Park, California. I taught there for one year, then took a teaching position at Cucamonga Junior High School, now known as Cucamonga Middle School.
I'm not quite ready to step down yet, but I can see that opening at the end of the tunnel, and it's no longer a train barreling down the track, but an open window on a new world. I know many people who have no desire to retire for the simple reason they feel they'd be bored. Not me.
As I noted in another post, there's a lot of things I want to do. One of them is to experience different places in the fall. Having grown up in Southern California, we don't really have fall. Leave turn colors all through our winter as it gets colder. I want to see an actual fall sometime. I haven't been able to do that, because I'm always working in the fall. I guess my first trip when I retire will be to New Hampshire. Who knows? It could happen.
I saw this prompt today and thought, "That's what my life feels like right now." I feel like I'm in a race and I'm getting close to the finish line. The good thing is, I know why I feel that way and it's just something that's going to happen.
Our second yearbook deadline comes next Monday. Because we have next Monday off, it literally is a race the clock, because that means everything is due this Friday. Are we there yet? Nope. Will we be there by Friday? God, I hope so.
If everything comes off according to plan, this should be a well received yearbook. Being it's my first yearbook as an advisor, I have nothing to compare it to, but I'm hoping the staff can pull it all together in the next 48 hours or so, so we'll be able to say we raced the clock and won.
The photo is one that I took 3 and a half years ago at a cross country meet where my youngest was competing. It was very overcast that day, so I was able to experiment with some long shutter speeds in the low light conditions. This shot was one of the better ones.
I'm trying something a little bit different here. Since I did well with writing prompts, I've discovered some daily writing prompts and I'm going to try and see if that will help me get through this block I sometimes have. We'll see where it takes me, but the one I checked on today gave me some good material to work with for the first day, so I'm going to try it.
Sometimes, you just need music to help you get through the day. 5 song titles that pretty much typify my past week would be the following:
Pressure - by Billy Joel
Under Pressure - by Queen and David Bowie
Help! - by the Beatles
Deadlines - by Arkells
Don't Stop Believin' - by Journey
Sometimes, it's just so much fun being the multi-media instructor at school. I was on my high school yearbook when I was a senior in high school. Deadlines look a lot different from the instructor's point of view. The respect I've always had for my yearbook teacher, Mrs. Denise Tate, has just been ratcheted up several more notches.
