Who thought it would be this much work?

There was some delusional part of me that thought I would actually have time to do things like update my blog regularly while doing this student teaching gig. Holy caffeine, Batman! On the few nights that I have enough work done by 10 PM that I feel like I can spend a little time with the dogs, with the guitars, or watching "Dukes of Hazzard" reruns, I get so excited that the elation of finally feeling like I'm no longer sinking in a sea of yet-to-be-read papers and books keeps me up anyway. I think I'm averaging about 5 1/2 hours of sleep on school nights.

I'm not complaining, not by a long shot. I love what I'm doing and learned a long time ago that nothing is ever going to be quite as perfect as I'd like, so I'm taking the good with the bad. So far the only real downside is all of the reading that I have to keep up with. I'm teaching 3 different subjects with books that I've never read before (and in fact, I've avoided reading a lot of them as much as I could until now), I'm reading for my student teaching seminar every week, and taking a Spanish class as well. Two weeks ago one of my students asked what I read for fun, and I kind of laughed. I had to quickly explain to her that English teachers have the least free-reading time of anyone, and told her how happy I was two nights before to take half an hour to read a bit of one of my aviation magazines.

One of the big things I've learned so far this semester is to realign my expectations with reality. I am not going to have as much time to spend with friends as I want for a while. I am not going to give the dogs as much attention as they need. I am not going to be playing at the open mic very much. I am not going to have as much time as I'd like to put into a relationship (should this one become an issue. I'm working on it...) A lot of sacrifice goes along with this part of my life, and this is something I'm willing to accept because the rest of this gig is so rewarding and I know it's not going to last forever.

Zen lesson of the day (and every day), given to me by Dr. Bill Washburn, who may or may not know what an incredible influence he is on my teaching: Learn to spend your energy wisely while being present in the places where you find yourself.