Randomday, and What I Haven't Been Blogging About

It's the midpoint of the school year.  Final exams are graded but not all given back to the students.  There are still stacks of worksheets to grade and a few extra credit points to assign, and the comments to write, and the report cards to finalize, and the 3rd quarter's syllabus to finalize, and the Latin Olympika Certamen tests to write, and ... and... and...

This will be my final year teaching at Cedar Tree.  I have known for a year or more now, and it is a good and necessary change even though I will miss my 16 years of teaching Latin to young minds. But somehow it has become That Thing That I'm Afraid to Blog About, and that has kept me from writing as much and as freely as I need to on this blog, for the last year. I have noticed a distinct lack of the spunky sense of fun that I think my blog should have, although the very few who do follow this blog have probably, at most, only thought, "hm, she's not blabbing as much anymore."  We all live in the world of our minds to some degree; I especially plead guilty to replaying and overthinking and overanalyzing every decision.  If you're wired this way, it helps tremendously to have some kind of creative outlet (knitting, quilting, writing) and a circle of supportive friends; so I will be unpacking my thoughts on the idea of not being a teacher anymore over the next months.  I don't require comments or feedback, although I'm by no means shutting them down. There's a lot I, personally, need to process and my personal blog is the most logical place to do it. Even there and presuming I share it to Facebook friends, I'm always fearful of negative feedback. But first, you know, I have to make the initial announcement.  So, yes.  I'm not going to be a Latin teacher after this year.

I get some people who ask "What will you do?"  These are the people who have no memory of me as anything other than a Latin teacher at my kids' school.  With the best of intentions, I'm sure, but this only has the effect of making me feel more typecast into a role somebody else wrote for me.  I have always enjoyed the Latin teacher identity, but I have 4 young adult (well, teenage at least) children, one of them with special needs, a 100-year-old house, and far too many hobbies and interests to keep up with on one blog. I have been teaching longer than any of my students have been alive.  I'm relatively sure I will find plenty to do.  Whether any of it will make money or not is quite another matter, but money has always been a secondary consideration for me.  Rather obviously.  

I could stick in the Latin field and be quite happy, doing things like creating this course on the Duolingo discussion forum.  I'm rather proud of it, even though it's not official and not finished yet.  I believe that some of my more conventional study guides and lesson plans would be useful if published.  Or I could devote myself to researching the legal and financial steps needed to prepare Tertia for life and work as an adult with Down syndrome.  I could take a few months and schedule all the medical appointments I've been putting off far too long, then another few months for that thorough housecleaning that has never happened.  I could write books, people! Or I could just make a lot of quilts and sweaters.  I used to be a community organizer... some people have found that leads to very prominent careers.  There are some who think that William Shakespeare, during his "lost years," was a teacher of Latin at a country grammar school.  He had a pretty good second act.

So, there are my ramblings for today.  It will be back to quilting and wooly endeavors and blabbing about literature, philosophy, family, politics and who knows what else after this, I sincerely hope.