First Day of School

I never feel ready,
but I am.
It seems like everything
will always be new
but newness fades,
gives way to familiarity
both comforting and
stifling
and here we are again
the reoccurring
dream
of
a
dream
of
a
dream
like two mirrors
facing one another
an infinity
of repetition
until....
nothing
new happens.

Okay so that was a pretty crappy impromptu poem...forgive me, I haven't been slamming and I have written any poetry since the beginning of summer so I am out of practice. I'm also tired, but a good tired. Today was the first day of school technically. There wasn't class, but at 3:00pm all the students and their families came to visit their classrooms. I was astounded to be able to see the actual hallway walls, which I haven't seen in weeks. The hallway has been a living storage closet of emergency preparedness supplies, text books, mystery furniture and broken file cabinets. And then miraculously it all went somewhere...and the classrooms and offices that just yesterday looked like poorly organized garage sales came together, clean, shiny, and with the inviting glow cast by new smart boards, new classroom computers and books, books, and more books. I love the beginning of school, when everything feels manageable. I'm ready, ahead in my planning even after creating my design for the year and finishing my monthly syllabus.

It was awesome to see the kids again. Some I know and some are new. The ones I know seem very excited to have me as a teacher. I keep wondering if they'll feel the same when they find out how hard I'm going to work them. :) I met a whole bunch of parents and lost two name tags before I gave up on trying to identify myself. Then there was an all school picnic. My school has the best potlucks. I picked the worst time to go on a sugar detox. Saying no to all those brownies, cakes, Popsicles, and I don't even know what else really sucked, but the day was good. Tomorrow is the real first day...my first class with the fourth grade as a Spanish teacher. I feel like I should buy a sombrero. All the Spanish teachers I had before college were kind of odd. There was one who nicknamed herself la bruja (the witch). She wore witches hats (not just on Halloween) and she kept a spray bottle that she would use to squirt kids who got caught speaking English. "Ingles es kaka!" she would scream. It was very disconcerting. I don't want to be all crazy, but I do want to be different....cool, the teacher that gets them interested and teaches them well.