In the thick of things, there is great joy

I have posted my struggles, or at least I have alluded (I had to look up elude, illude, and finally allude to get the right word/meaning for this sentence) to them, with student teaching, so I feel I should even things out by posting some of the triumphs as well. First, one of my students said she was going to bring me a birthday present, and yesterday, she did--a huge Symphony bar (the toffee kind) wrapped with red and white ribbon and given with the cutest lion card that is made to sit up on a shelf with his legs dangling down. Just awesome. So meaningful and sweet, and I couldn't believe it; her kind gesture made me feel like a "real" teacher, and like I am doing something important, significant, and worthwhile. I will keep that little lion card forever, but the chocolate is long gone :). I did share some with my family. That student made my day!

Another triumph took place with one of my students who has asperger's syndrome. He doesn't like to write or participate in class, which is kind of a problem as I teach English and both skills are required daily. The first phone call I made to a parent was actually to his mom about these very issues. We do bell-ringer/ journal writes nearly every day, and he was falling behind, so I asked if she could have him come in after class to catch up. When I discussed the concepts with him in person, he completely understood and explained them to me perfectly, so I knew his apparent refusal to work wasn't a matter of inability. Anyway, I explained that if he needed more time to complete the assignments, that I would be happy to give it to him, but that I also needed him to put forth some effort and "show" me that he was working in class. Last week, during the bell ringer, he came and showed me his journal write: two short, well written and complete sentences. I was floored! By small and simple steps are great things brought to pass. I am so proud of this student and for the signs of progress he is showing.

There are also millions of other tiny things that make me happy to be a teacher: students calling out and saying hello to me in the hall, the fact that I can reprimand students with a smile and that they still like and respect me afterward, students who show me things they are doing in other classes, funny things they say and do in class, being called Mrs.B, reading amazing work written by my creative writing students, teachers who are always willing and ready to share great advice and encouragement, and so on and so on. On days like today, which was extremely difficult and taxing classroom management wise, and I am questioning my career choice, it is good to reflect on the joys of teaching and to let the rest slide off my weary mind like a veteran teacher would. I am doing it; like my friends Cori and Nat said to me this week, I am living out my dream. I am becoming a teacher, and I can't let anything stop me from being anything less than my best. And besides, tomorrow is Friday!

Sometimes, when you are forty, you wake up at five in the morning on Saturday, which happens to be your birthday, and your only real chance of the week to sleep in, and instead of feeling bitter, you write long, meandering sentences, which are extended even longer, through the use of strategically placed commas, because you are forty, and you can. Other times, when you are almost forty, you notice, while styling your faux hawk on the day before your birthday, the glint of several silvery strands swirling in with the dark brown, and you think to yourself, "Yes. This is what happens when you are almost forty." and you embrace the fact that the silvery strands are there to stay. When you are forty, you also care much less about what others think of you than you did when you were ten, twenty, or even thirty, and it is quite a liberating feeling, and actually also very nice. When you are forty, on that same early birthday morning, you lie in bed, typing a blog post on your husband's iPad, and you think about all of the wonderful people who have made appearances in your life, and how lucky and grateful you are to know or have known each of them. You are grateful, also, for the life lessons you have learned, and for literary terms and devices you have mastered, such as lovely alliteration. When you are forty, your children are consecutively twenty one, twenty, and eighteen, all adults, and all presently still living at home, and you are secretly happy about all of this because you like having cool people around, and your children are the coolest. You have Tuesday taco nights, as a family, at Rubios, where you all get to discuss college and jobs and plans for the future together, and you soak it all up like a parched desert sponge because you know these times are probably fleeting, and contrary to the lyrics of a very cool song, you know what you've got before it's gone, because you are almost forty. When you are forty, you admire your husband's smooth, bald head and get accustomed to his olde-timey handle bar mustache, which he waxes so the ends curl up like identical twin unfinished o's. You hold his strong hand anytime you go anywhere together, which is a lot, and you squeeze hard because of all you've been through together and your plans for the future are looking brighter and closer all of the time. When you student teach, when you're forty, it nearly pushes you off of a very high cliff, but those strong hands pull you back up and show you that the scenery is actually quite nice if you stop to take a look, and you are grateful that you have such good, loving hands to hold on to for dear life when you are forty, or nearly forty, and facing day after day of a room full of between thirty-nine and forty-three seventh graders at a time. When you are forty, you can do anything you set your mind to and you don't have to ask anyone's permission either. You can technically do this when you are twenty, but you feel less guilty and more sure of yourself when you are forty. When you are forty, you have some neat goals for the year like summiting Mount Timpanogos again this summer, taking Beulah on long rides as often and as much as possible, hopefully getting hired as an English teacher at a junior high or high school, and being lucky enough to set up your own classroom in the fall, making some home improvements, and possibly buying a nicer car so you can travel to far off destinations like sunny Saint George and Capitol Reef National Park more often. When you are forty, you have more of a life to look back on, and you feel pretty satisfied and content with the choices you've made and the life you've created so far. And finally, when you are forty, you wonder what the next ten years will bring, and what you will write about when you are fifty, which used to seem a long ways away.

Stating the obvious

Reading, commenting on, and grading papers takes hours! I feel quite exhausted but satisfied too.

Faith update

I haven't written about my focus word for the year, faith, in a while, and I feel I should because I have something kinda cool to report. If you were in church today, you may have already heard my story, so please don't feel obligated to continue reading. To everyone else, my story may not seem cool at first, but if plug on through to the end, you may change your mind :). So, I have been working at the Writing Center a whole lot less this semester due to student teaching, only about five hours or so a week to be exact. This has resulted in quite a hit to our monthly finances, but we are budgeting, and I am paying for my tuition a little here and a little there as we can afford it. I have also been praying a lot, and finding strength in reading the Book of Mormon, so God knows our situation well, and as a result, I haven't really been stressing about paying for school because I am trusting God, Sean said he'd help me pay my tuition, and I was planning on putting all of my paychecks toward the total anyway. Moving forward to last Monday, when I came home from student teaching, Forrest asked if he could take the car to the Orem Fitness Center, and I said yes. When he left, I changed my clothes and took the dogs for a walk because they were going crazy and really needed to get out. I came home 45 minutes later, started dinner, and Sean called and said Forrest had called him and said that he'd gotten into an accident but that he was ok. I am a total worry wart--every time my kids or husband leave home, I worry that they will get in an accident, so this phone call was, or could have been, my worst nightmare. But Sean was calm, and that calmed me, and right after I got off the phone, Forrest pulled into the driveway and came inside. He wasn't hurt at all, the car had only cosmetic damage, and best of all, the accident was the other driver's fault, and she was honest, took full responsibility, gave Forrest all of her info, and when I called her a little later, she said she'd send in a claim. The insurance claims agent came to assess the damage on Friday, after which, she left a check for us, and the amount was enough to pay for all but the last 300 dollars or so of my tuition. This whole experience was completely unexpected--not at all the way I thought or hoped my prayers would be answered--but I am getting used to God taking care of things in amazing and unpredictable ways. Faith works, everybody, and so does prayer. I know that things don't always turn out the way we want them to, but I also know that the Lord is watching out for us and so wants us to trust and confide in him and his infinite knowledge, wisdom, and immense love for us. When Corinne went into the MTC last fall and became ill there, at first I prayed and prayed that she would get well and be able to complete her mission as she had hoped and planned. But, I kept feeling that those prayers were selfish--they only had one way to be answered, MY way--and I changed my focus and asked the Lord to help me and my daughter accept his will for her. She came home just before Thanksgiving, spent the holidays with us, and got well enough to go to Korea in January, which was her dream. Then, I got a phone call from her in the middle of the night just a week and a half after she arrived. Her illness had returned. We talked for a while, and she confided in me that she really felt she should come home, even though she didn't want to. I was able to express my love for her and told her that I know the Lord loves her and that she was faithful and had served an honorable mission, no matter how short. We both wanted for her to be able to stay, but we had also both accepted that it was not the Lord's will for her to do so at this time. I could have been angry with the Lord, and blamed or accused him for not fulfilling his promise to my daughter, but I chose not to be. I chose to trust in him like I had PROMISED to do, and because of that choice, my heart and life are FILLED with love for him and his will. I don't know why it has taken me so long to trust him like I do now, well actually, that is not true; I do. There are many, many reasons that I chose not to believe before, but today, and I hope for the rest of my life, I will trust him fully and completely, for he has given me every reason to do so. No person on this earth has ever been there the way he is for me, and I have some amazing friends and family who are so good at meeting and fulfilling my needs, but not like this. The Lord fulfills his promises. The manner and time in which he does so may not make sense to us, but we should NEVER give up believing that he will. This is how faith is working in my life, and it is incredible!