The dog days are over...

I could see the eyes of the seventh and eighth graders glaze over somewhere between Alcott's mother, Abigail, and her sister Elizabeth.

"Listen. I'm not going to try to fool you into thinking appositives are the most exciting thing you'll ever learn about, but it's not an open invitation to sleep."

No, I'll save fooling them into excitement with superlative adjectives. They'll be the excitedest... er... the most excited.

In a recent news article I was quoted as saying, "We're thrown in the water and asked to sink or swim."

I've always been a good swimmer. I can swim for miles. I can tread water for hours. I learned the butterfly when I was eight and the other strokes much earlier. Sinking has never been an option.

So when it seemed like the option was sink or swim, I have to say, I was relieved. But you see, I haven't done too much swimming in the last few years. In fact, I'm a little out of practice. And this is the part where my metaphors get confused with reality and what I'm actually talking about.

This teaching thing is just as hard as I though it would be. Granted, I made myself think it would be much harder than I actually hoped it would be... so I would be pleasantly surprised. Nope. Just as hard. But it's hard in a way that I've seldom experienced, where I feel challenged to do better every day, where even a good day is a day that could use a lot of improvement. That's a type of pressure that seems foreign and uncomfortable and, in a way, perfect.

"We were not made for comfort. We were made for greatness." - Father Hudgins

So here I am, with my teacher floaties, just beyond the shallow, simply remembering to breathe.