I think what I will miss the most about my job here at FE, is the space in which to write about my amazing students. I feel incredibly privileged to have the chance to work with them.

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Yesterday I was standing in the hallway at work, fumbling as usual for the keys to my office and a young woman rounded the corner, a chubby-cheeked baby in her arms. I recognized her immediately as one of the students I taught about a year ago--one of the students from this class. She'd been pregnant then--clearly with the little guy she held in her arms.

"Student S.!" I said in surprise. "So good to see you!"

We caught up a little on things--I found out she had taken a semester off after her pregnancy, and she's back now, thank goodness. I have wondered about her from time to time, because she'd promised to visit soon after her baby was born and she never did. I often wonder about my students, especially the ones who make an impact on me (whether negatively or positively). I feel compelled to know their stories, to wonder after them when they're gone; often I worry about them, the way a mother might. And the ones who disappear? They really haunt me. I was happy to see her on the college campus again--happy she brought her son by for a visit.

I am not a procrastinator by nature, but I've been procrastinating about going back to work myself. It didn't help that there was some confusion about the start date for this semester's classes, and for weeks I thought that classes started this past Wednesday. I only realized on Tuesday, after a series of frantic text messages back and forth between colleagues, that classes start this Monday. So suddenly, gloriously, I found myself with a small handful of extra days. A small handful of kid-free days.

I finished a book.

I cleaned out my pantry.

I did some extra shopping for T.'s upcoming birthday.

I went to the Farmer's Market.

I exercised three days in a row.

And then, on Thursday, I gave in and went to work. When I opened the door to my office, I wanted to shut it again and flee. If you are not a teacher, you can't possibly imagine the mess that results from the end of a semester. You are in such a hurry to turn in your grades, you have to ward off a seemingly endless tide of students who only just then thought to worry about their grades, you are drowning in course outcome reports and attendance reports and incomplete grade reports and when it's finally done--when you hit "submit" on those grades--you just can't get out of there fast enough. This is why my office is always left a complete mess at the end of any semester. I had come prepared though, with two large trash bags and some rubber gloves. I cranked the music and spent an hour sorting folders and shredding papers and tests. By the end I had cleared a nice, presentable work area, and I felt really good.

But still not quite ready to work.

Scott left town on Tuesday to fly to Texas for his grandmother's funeral, leaving me to solo parent for a few days. After a few days alone with the kids, I am ready to kneel down and worship single parents everywhere--I mean those truly single parents, who take care of their kids 24/7 365 days/year. I've been sick with bronchitis all week, trying to grade final exams, put together end-of-semester reports, tend to our still-invalid dog and the rest of our menagerie, AND recover/learn enough algebra skills to help L. with his homework, and have felt, mostly, barely human.

But I'm not here to whine and complain. It's Friday, after all.

I keep having to remind myself that next week is Thanksgiving. As usual, everything's come to a sort of bottleneck here, at the end of the semester. I'm behind in grading and other course administration tasks; the children's schools are piling on event after event. I received a grant (hooray!) for a proposal I wrote but now have to produce an article by December 1st (boo!). Somehow I committed myself to baking some international-themed dish for an event today, (what happened to my vow to learn to say no?) and our weekend suddenly went from carefree and commitment-free to being completely booked.

I really would rather be spending my time these days paging through some of my favorite recipe books and magazines, planning our Thanksgiving feast, and wondering how on earth I can veganize a delectable-looking pie like this, or dreaming about the way this one might taste, or--my goodness--this beauty, too.

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Thanksgiving is a strange time for vegetarians. Not because we don't know what to serve for the big dinner, but because people seem confused about how to talk to us this time of the year. Everywhere we go people sidestep around the topic of the Thanksgiving menu, dropping their voices to a hushed whisper when they say the word "turkey." I'll never forget the time, a few years ago, when I was at the dentist for a routine cleaning and the hygienist asked me about Thanksgiving dinner.

"Do you serve a whole turkey," she asked, "or just the breast?"

T., who was sitting on the floor on a blanket, watching it all, piped up suddenly:

A friend of mine is trying to practice mindfulness--that is, the practice of stopping and reflecting on the moment, what you are feeling now as separate from what came before, and what might come after. You focus on physical and emotional sensations, and on your body's needs and reactions, in order to try and achieve a greater understanding of how to reach a calmer, more peaceful state. This is a Buddhist practice, but more therapists and psychologists are incorporating mindfulness training into their work with their patients. It occurred to me, while I was listening to my friend, that mindfulness could help L. a great deal, if only we could get him to try a more mindful approach when life spins out of control. But getting him to apply these types of strategies when he's anxious, or during those awful, bottom-dropping-out spiraling meltdown moments, just hasn't worked. I think mindfulness requires a great amount of mental discipline, and we adults have a hard enough time practicing disciplined mindfulness as it is.

I'm popping in today with two public service announcements. Both are about safety and well-being, and I'm only posting the first here because it rattled me so much.

One morning last week I dropped L. off at his school a little bit after 7:15. I drove off and up the hill leading away, and stopped at a red traffic light. I was in a fog, still trying to wake myself up, and the morning light was that gray, darkish kind of light that makes you want to crawl back into bed. All of a sudden the back passenger door to my car opened and A MAN stuck his head into MY car and said quickly, "your scarf was shut in the door" and then, just as quickly, the head disappeared. He shut the car door (MY car door), the light turned green, and I drove off feeling completely freaked out yet totally numb at the same time.

What had just happened? It took a few minutes for me to absorb the fallout from just how freaked out I'd been, because for a few horrible seconds, I had really thought I was being carjacked. But then, as often happens, my relief turned to anger. It seemed so wrong for someone--anyone--to open up another person's back car door just like that and scare the daylights out of them for a few seconds.

Back at home that night I told Scott about it, and asked him what he thought. He didn't seem too fazed at first and, because he's always inclined to see the good in people, said something about a good samaritan.

"He opened my car door!" I said. "That's just not right."

I've been taking on too much lately. You know how it is, you pile on thing after thing, thinking you can do it all, but it's that one last thing--that smallest of all the things--that ends up being the one to topple it all.  Like, saying 'yes' weeks ago under some duress to an invitation to attend an evening event on campus this past Friday, only to discover, three days later, that it was the same night and time as my daughter's school's fall festival.

Her new school. Her first fall festival there. And her grade worked hard on making bottle cap magnets to sell at the event, to raise money to help heal Haiti. After agonizing for a bit, I came up with a plan: go to the campus event (I had already sent in my RSVP), leave after forty minutes, and dash over to her school which, in ideal circumstances, should only be fifteen minutes away. It could work, but smooth implementation of the plan hinged on getitng the kids home, and dinner ready, and everyone fed by 4:30 so we could leave at 5:00. I would drop Scott and the kids off at T.'s school, and keep going to my campus in time to get to the gallery event by 6:00. I was a well-oiled machine, I tell you. I whipped up dinner in record time and had it ready by 4:35. 

At 5:05 I was at the front door with T., purse over my arm, ready to go.

At 5:10 I was still there, at the front door. I love my husband dearly, but he is not what you would call fast on his feet. L. inherited those genes, for sure. By the time we did leave at 5:20 I was frazzled and grouchy and working hard to keep it together. It would take twenty minutes to get to T.'s school, and another twenty to drop them off and head downtown to my campus, park, and walk. I'd get to the gallery late, which would mean leaving the event later than I had planned, which would mean getting to the fall festival even later.

My plan! My plan was unraveling before my eyes!

Am I the only parent who sometimes tiptoes around the house when the kids are busy by themeselves, for fear that once they hear me, they'll remember they needed/wanted something?

Somehow, I don't think I am.

Yesterday I had a huge to-do list to work through. We had a wonderful, busy, fun weekend and my parents were in town, too, which made things more wonderful and busy and fun. We ushered in fall by going to two festivals: the annual International Festival downtown, featuring food and crafts and music from all around the world, and the first annual Oktoberfest, also downtown. The weather was crisp and perfectly fall-like, and everyone seemed infected by the lifting of the heavy, hot summer temperatures. But as most--if not all--teachers know, Sunday is a bittersweet day. Too much play on Saturday means all that work for Monday gets pushed into one day, a day also loaded with getting-ready-for-the-week chores like laundry and baking and helping L. with weekend homework.

Sometimes Sunday makes me feel very grumpy, and very overwhelmed.

So when I came out of the shower on Sunday morning and heard T. busily playing in the room, I tiptoed carefully downstairs past her room. L. was in the office, also busy, with the door closed. Scott was at a tennis match, and the house was quiet, in that way that takes you by surprise when you're a parent. When kids are very, very little, too much quiet never bodes well (I can't tell you the damage that was done when the kids were little, always when things got eerily quiet); but when your kids are older quiet is a good thing. It means they're reading, or absorbed in some task and you hold your breath, because such quiet is always a very tenuous thing--at least at our house.

And it must never, ever be messed with.

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I love teaching, and I love my job. But like any job, you can also go through ups and downs--days when you feel undervalued, and spread-too-thin, and plain old frustrated with the people around you. Actually, parenting can be like that, too. But because teaching involves so much public performance, and energy, and sorting out of personalities and learning needs inside the classroom, it can also be particularly draining--more so than other jobs, I think. A bad day in the classroom can catch you in a web of self-doubts: Am I good teacher? Was I prepared enough? Have I lost my touch? Did I present the material in the wrong way? Explain too much? Too little?

And it's been a rocky, draining, I'm-spread-too-thin week so far, with lots of rough classes, and self-doubts flowing right and left. Yesterday, I was sitting in my office, feeling a little sorry for myself, and trying not to look at the stack of homework papers waiting to be checked, when a student dropped by. I sighed a little inside--not because I didn't want to see him, but because so far this week it seems as if every student I come across has some complaint: too much work, too little work, work that's too boring (really!), work that's confusing, work that hasn't been done, work that was done but not turned in and here's why, work they don't want to do and here's why. I am gracious about complaints when I can be, because they help make me a better teacher--I know that, but they do wear on you after awhile.

When I saw this student I braced myself. He's in an afternoon class I'm having particular troubles with--mostly because of a small handful of students with, as I call it, "strong personalities." What would he say now? What issues would I have to field and sort out for him?

He came and sat down in the big chair by my desk. He looked nervous, and a little ill-at-ease.

We have one full week of back-to-school under our belts, but many of my friends are gearing up for their first full weeks. We've had a busy travel weekend: lots of family gatherings and a trip to the unrgent care for L. thrown into the mix. He's fine, but remind your kids that there is a good reason why parent-people insist that they keep their chairs rooted firmly to the floor. 

And I'm starting this new week with a head cold. Blech.

While I take some time to regroup, I'll leave you with a re-post from two years ago: some back-to-school tips we found helpful ourselves, and some we still use today.

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Drowning in school-generated fliers, handouts, and forms? When in doubt, make a folder for it. I love folder systems. Before the start of each new semester I load up on folders from the dollar store, or the office supply store. I label them accordingly, and I staple my class rosters to the inside of one of each of the folders. Not long after I discovered the beauty of the folder system at home, L. started kindergarten and brought home with him, on the first day, a deluge of papers: handouts, forms, brochures, fliers. I used to leave them in a pile on one end of the kitchen table, but the pile kept growing and growing with each passing day, and I'd shuffle it from one end of the table to the other. Finally, I found a plastic paper sorter tray at the thrift store and created a folder system—one color for papers to be signed, another for time-sensitive fliers, etc. Now that T. is in kindergarten I’ve already set up a folder system like that for her papers, although I’m happy to see that her school is relying more on electronic, more eco-friendly ways of communication.