Our Christmas Tree 

The Ice-Skating Rink that opened infront of our house for three days! 

So this is Christmas...

It is strange that this time last year James and I were in Scotland spending Christmas with Mum, Dad, Gran and Granpa. Even though it is Christmas Eve night, officially it is now Christmas Day in Scotland! How much has happened in a year and yet how quickly it has gone by. I guess that is what happens as you get older—since time is relative in the sense that a year moves more quickly for someone who has lived through 23 of them than it does for someone who has only lived ten or fourteen years—time seems to speed up the older you get. When you are a child you don’t have as many responsibilities or things to try and cram into 24 hours a day. Also, as a child I don’t remember as many things changing every year as have changed in my life the past few years.
I guess not all the changes have been bad. I met James, and that along with the whole falling in love and getting married bit, has possibly been the best thing that has ever happened to me. However, I also lost Carrie and just like I am still marveling at the fact that I found someone as wonderful as James, I am still suffering from loss of someone as wonderful as Carrie. Christmas is really hard this year. I guess the change of pace of being in Scotland last year helped distract me more than I realized. I have been crying on and off all day today. I don’t know how I will make it through tomorrow being around James’ family. I remember even before Carrie died, I cried the first Christmas I spent with James’ family because I missed being with Mum and Daddy and Carrie. I had to go outside so that no one would notice until I could compose myself. I don’t like crying in front of others, and I don’t think most people would understand. Luckily James’ family changed up their plans so James and I will get to spend Christmas evening with my parents.
Another positive change was going to college where I had many wonderful opportunities to travel while studying Journalism and International Studies. A wonderful education that I have not used since I took my final exams. I am currently teaching seventh grade English even though I have only had 12 hours of English classes in College. Journalism is not English and I have always had serious disagreements with quite a few “traditional’ American grammar rules. That was one reason I felt at home with Journalism, it broke most of the rules and just made up new ones. Now I am in a job where the rules aren’t clear and because I am now in a role model position I am definitely not allowed to break them. So when my students do things that I do not think are wrong, but the school sees as wrong, I must punish the students. I also am not allowed to say what I really think and feel in front of my students. If my students do or say something really funny, I am not allowed to laugh at the risk of hurting someone’s self esteem. I feel restricted, exactly the opposite of how I felt as a journalist.
So in addition to having one degree already that I do not use, I am afraid I am in the process of earning another one that I am not sure if I will actually use after these two years are up. I do take consolation in the fact that the pursuit of knowledge is not an end in itself and that even if I do not use the knowledge that I attain in any sort of professional manner it will help me to become a better person. Yeah, well, in theory anyway. I want to go to law school next, but I am really starting to wonder if it would be yet another degree that I will not use. When will I ever figure out what I want to be when I grow up? At 23, I feel mostly grown up and I definitely feel that I should know what I want to do.
So what will this next year hold? What changes will come and what will remain the same? James only has 7 hours of school left before he graduates this May with his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (YEAH!!!). Soon he will be making about twice as much as I do now! Both of us are hoping to find jobs and moving to the Tupelo area (closer to my parents, about the same distance from his) this summer. I hope to find a job teaching HIGH SCHOOL (not seventh grade) and hopefully Social Studies instead of English. If everything goes as planned—although it never does—than this time next year maybe we will have even more positive changes occur in out lives. I realize that unfortunate changes are inevitable in everyone’s lives but I do hope that they will be few and far between for James and I and for you all. Have a merry Christmas and a truly happy New Year.
PS It is rumored that we are supposed to have a new principal when we get back to school on January 3rd. More details as events warrant.

Holiday Highlights

Number of days of school left before Christmas break—one and three fifths (Friday is a 60% day)
Number of students who took an exam today—nineteen (I had a lot of absences)
Number of nineteen students who passed—six (grades ranged from an 80 to a 34)
Number of days I spent going over the exact test questions—three
Number of students that have yet to take their tests—forty-four
Number of students who received failing grades of their progress reports—50 (of 63)
Number of students who scored above a 70% on their 6th grade MCT—three
Number of students my school expects me to prepare to pass the 7th grade MCT—63
Number of school districts I will be applying to over Christmas break—12
Number of months before this school year is over—five and a half
Number of students who have thanked me—six
Number of things thrown at me this semester—too many to count (calculator, pencils, erasers, paper wads)
Number of times I have been shoved—twice
Number of times I have been scratched—once
Number of times I have been called names including racial slurs—too many to count
Number of times I have questioned what I am doing—a billion
Number of days of school left before Christmas break—one and three fifths (Friday is a 60% day)

I know that it has been a long time since I have blogged, but I have discovered that the only real way to cope is to just not think about school unless I am there (and even then sometimes it helps to try and think about something or somewhere else).
I have been thinking a lot about my future lately and the future of my students. I am definitely not going to be at my school next year and I am not going to feel guilty about it. I love my students, but unless they fail the seventh grade I wouldn’t be responsible for teaching them again next year anyway. I do not like my principal and chances are she will still be there next year. I am tired of driving 45 minutes to job that, for the most part, I do not like and then having to drive another 45 minutes just to get home to my favorite person in the world. So, I have decided to ignore the impossible (or implausible) and focus on the few things I know I can do that will help my students the most. I am still trying to narrow the areas they need help in to a few that I can focus on the next two semesters. I am really curious to see how the MCT scores turn out this year and whether or not our school is taken over by the state. I guess I will have to read about it in the papers, because I definitely won’t be there to find out.
Most people seem to really enjoy going to class on the weekends and being around all of the other Teacher Corps people. I, however, seem get even more depressed on weekends when we have classes. My grades are good, at least that is something to be proud of, but it is hard not to think about school when everyone is talking about it. It is hard to be happy with my lot in life and not be envious when everyone is talking about how things are at their school. It is even worse when people are complaining about something at their school, like the copying machine being broke, when my school doesn’t even have a copy machine!
Now you see why I have not been blogging and why I have been avoiding TC people. No I am not depressed. I love life. I just have to focus on the things that I love in life (and beyond) and remember that as both of my fathers tell me “this too will pass”! Christmas is just around the corner and I couldn’t be happier. The week I had off for Thanksgiving Break felt like the best week of my life. I can only imagine how wonderful two weeks will feel. There is so much I want to do. There are so many books that I want to read. There is so much paper work to complete. There is an L-SAT to study for. There is a teaching position closer to Mom and Dad to try and find for next year. There is cooking and cleaning and Christmas shopping to do. There are Christmas cards to write and cookies to bake for James’s co-workers. Oh, but it never before sounded like so much fun!