September 8, 2011

A New Life

Posted in Uncategorized tagged small town life, teach at 11:13 pm by a care in the world

Time certainly flies at the beginning of the school year! I’m 4-5 weeks into teaching History, Social Studies and Economics at my new school in North Carolina, and I’m having SUCH a great time. True, I’m commuting at least 2 hours a day and working my butt off, but my students and colleagues are worth all the extra hours I put in. I feel valued and appreciated in a way that I haven’t felt in a job before, and I also feel committed to the job in a way I haven’t before. I think I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be– the hours I spend preparing for school are research hours that I might do for fun on a Friday night, being the nerd that I am, because I’m that interested in and passionate about the subjects. I only hope the kids are learning from me a fraction of what I’m learning myself.

Photo from here.

I could do without the stress of leading Yearbook, but maybe I just haven’t hit my stride there yet. I often regret that my lack of athletic background prevents me from coaching, because that seems to be the natural extracurricular partner for teaching. However, Yearbook with its photos and written articles certainly jive with my photography and English background, so I guess I shouldn’t complain that much 🙂

Our little NC town has lived up to its teeny status of having almost nothing in town and being pretty far away from everywhere. There are a couple of friend buffet restaurants, a Food Lion, and a handful of churches, but that’s about it. I don’t spend much of my time there, but I will say our church could not possibly be more warm and welcoming. We actually got an old-fashioned “pounding” at my first Wednesday Night Supper! The church members each brought us a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, a pound of cornmeal, etc.– as well as more paper goods than we could even count. I think it’s safe to safe we won’t run out of paper towels or toilet paper for the rest of the year.