Inaugural post

The 2012-13 school year starts tomorrow, so tonight seemed like the perfect time to write my inaugural post for this blog. Each school year brings such promises, possibilities, and questions-- what will my students be like? will a bird crash through the biology classroom's window again? what books will my kids love? how many fights will I break up? who will be my class clowns? which ones will grind my gears?-- and difficulties. This year, in particular, will be a hard year because we have so much change happening within our school and the district. I can't say I'm ready for the emotional side of teaching this year, but I'm ready to get this school year on the road, since every day over is a day closer to July!

So here's the mushy stuff: In June, my fiancee deployed for a year stint in Afghanistan. I've known J for 8 years. Our friendship had a lot of mixed signals, one miserably failed date, one historical marker about barnyard artifical insemination, and a lot of dead ends (but that's a story for another day) but we had been dating for just under 13 months when he popped the question in May. It was the best day of my life-- even better than watching Penn State crush Ohio State in 2005 in Beaver Stadium. (The link goes to Tamba Hali flipping Ohio State Dude on his head. Watch it. It's awesome.)  I get to spend the rest of my life with my best friend! What could be better or more perfect than that? (Answer: nothing!)

But, until J comes back, I've got a ton of things to get done, and inevitably, some time to fill so that it's not so lonely and so depressing waiting for him to return. My family's not a military family, and I've never really dealt with deployment so personally, although I've had friends and parents of my friends deploy. This is a first-time thing for me, and while I want to really believe J won't deploy again, I know that's probably not the case. It's funny how, just over a year and a half ago, I was completely single and very adept at doing everything by myself. Even when J was stateside, we lived 4 hours apart (or 6-8 hours depending on interstate traffic), so we didn't get to see each other every day. Now, it seems like the weekends last forever and my life is centered around the few minutes we get to chat at night. This blog is part of my effort to be upbeat and have an interesting year, rather than throwing a giant, year-long pity party.

As with everything-- as with each new school year-- there are promises, possibilities, questions, and difficulties. Maybe what I post here won't be particularly helpful to anyone, or even read (that's a real possibility), but hopefully at least one person who feels very lonely, very crafty, very teacher-y, or at the very least, bored, will get something of use from this. If not, it will always be something to look back on-- especially when J's back and we're no longer separated by 7,000 miles.

Here's to a new (school) year! May it be swift, educational, fun, and filled with possibilities.  Now it's time for me to go back to cross stitching and watching the last hour of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
-Jo