Summer Review: Part One

Hello again. It certainly has been a while. These posts may be long to catch you up to speed on my life, so in case you want the super short and sweet version, here it is: summer came and went, and right now having finished the second week of my third year, I am very happy with my decision to stay. But honestly my life is much more interesting than that so read on if you please.

It is curious to think about how writing in this blog does not feel quite as crucial for my life as it did two years ago. Could it be that for once I feel that I am somewhere within reach of the way I would like this job to be, or that I am somewhat within grasp of driving home happy for weeks at a time? It could be that I am in a relationship right now, or maybe it is the fact that I am surrounded by new teachers at school, making me the veteran. More on that later.

And no, that was not a typo, I am in a relationship of almost six months now to a girl I really care about. If you have been keeping up with the posts these past years, you will know her as Jackie, the girl I went on the hike with last summer. If she were writing this post, she would want to draw your attention to the fact that no moves were made on the trip on my end, and it took about seven months more for anything to happen at all. She would probably also emphasize the fact that she made the first move on me. But those are her words.

I have found that this job is much easier when you have someone to share it with on a daily basis, especially someone who knows exactly what you are going through. Most of you will know that Jackie teaches 9th grade Biology at another high school in the district just across the freeway from Richmond, and some days her job makes mine look like a walk in the park. I could go back through all the posts since my teaching began and find all the references to De Anza High School and the crazy things they have to deal with, or I could just say that she keeps me honest and helps me see the optimistic view of a day at RHS. She is incredibly self-motivated and driven, athletic and competitive, beautiful and smart, funny and genuine, and her CST scores confirm that she is amazing at what she does. She is pursuing a third teaching year as well and, like myself, is taking her life year by year in terms of what to do afterwards. It has been amazing having her support, which by the way completely beats out the therapeutic release of blogging, so maybe that is why I took a summer hiatus. Or maybe it was because I had no idea how to write or talk about serious relationships (still don't, really) and realized that if I posted anything I would have to address it somehow...

Okay, if I continue to write everything on my mind to fill you in on current events since the last post I will be up all night, and frankly I am still exhausted from the second week of teaching, so maybe I'll write more tomorrow morning. Goodnight.