Room 26

Pin It I packed up my room.

No, not my bedroom…my classroom.

As the items which made this room their home for the past several years found their way into boxes and were stacked up in the back, I could see nearly a decade of my life being put away with it. I found myself confronted by similar feelings to which I imagine Kathleen Kelly, the character in You’ve Got Mail, must have felt when her bookstore was closing down.

“Soon [I’ll] just be a memory. In fact someone, some foolish person, will probably think it’s a tribute to this [school], the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know, because that's the sort of thing I’m always saying. But the truth is; I’m heartbroken. I feel as if part of me has died, and no one can ever make it right.”

I know that this decision was mine and mine alone, however, how can one merely leave a place they’ve loved, had so many experiences in, and that has fundamentally changed their life?

You can’t.

I remember a friend of mine once saying, “You never truly leave a place you love. Part of it you take with you, leaving a part of yourself behind.”

It is at times like this that I question that statement. In time I will become nothing more than a faded memory…much like the faces of the past, those who’ve been a part of the school, but have faded into oblivion. Who knows these people now? Does anybody really care?

Such are the facedly-jaded moments of time which inevitably come to an end.

WE remember, but life does go on.

Today was hard and yet easy at the same time. We had graduation, photos were taken with students, and I found myself trying to prolong the inevitable…the closing down of the bookstore. As long as I was conversing with parents, having a photo taken with a student, or one of about a million other things, I was prolonging my time at the school which I’ve worked at for eight years.

However, like it inescapably does, the time came and then it passed. My life has been fundamentally changed and there is no going back. The items were moved, lights were turned off, farewells were spoken, and finally…the name plaque came down.

Room 26.

As I made ready to leave the room I found myself facing some writing left on the chalkboard by my students. It was with this that I felt a new emotion. I was not going to miss a room, but the people who made that room what it was. Like my longtime friend, Val Dixon, it is not her home which I love, but the family which make those four walls come to life.

A room is but a room.

I know that new adventures are waiting in the wings for their cue to take the center stage, but there is also a portion of my soul which dreads the change which the future is so eager to present to me.

“…my store is closing this week. I own a store. Did I ever tell you that? Probably not. It’s a lovely store—and in a week, it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. I am being amazingly brave — ”

Nothing to report of value

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Well, it is officially late thirty and I am blogging while the video files render.

I wanted to write of today…nothing earth-shattering or really meaningful. Just to share.

I only had one contact in all day.

It was really annoying, yet, I didn’t want to take it out and have 100% terrible vision. I instead spent a good portion of the day looking like a pirate.

I have nothing else to say other than it is too late and it will be awhile before I get to sleep tonight.

Two days left.

Noted absence as of late

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Several people have mentioned that I have not been blogging as of late. I am sorry about this, however, with the onslaught of the end-of-year programs, activities, etc., I find myself pressed for time more than usual. Couple this with packing my classroom and getting ready to move to a new school in just a few more days and you’ve got yourself a busy schedule.

Of course, I am not implying that your schedules are not equally loaded down with various and sundry items.

I am sorry to those who’ve I’ve not had a lot of time for lately. This, of course, will remedy itself before long.

I did take a few minutes, just prior to sitting down to make this post, to sit out on my deck and listen to the wind blowing through the trees of my Olympic-sized backyard. I felt it gently turn my thoughts and speak of things which have long lain silent and forgotten.

I will return soon enough.

Until then, I remain respectfully yours,

Teachinfourth

I thought I was going to throw up…

Pin It It is a beautiful Saturday and I was finishing my standard reports. I also was having some difficulty with my laptop. I decided to format the hard drive, and reinstall the operating system.

I hooked up my external hard drive and began to back up files. You know, my professional photos, all of the sixth grade photos for the graduation video, and all the video files for not only graduation, but for my classroom DVD as well. I also had a treasure trove of files on this external drive including my trip whitewater rafting last summer with my friend, Ron Firmage, and my classroom website.

In a few words, there was a HUGE amount of data stored on this drive

When I restarted my computer and made ready to format, I noticed a second “hard drive.” Now, why would I have that? When it was formatted before, was an extra partition created to simulate an additional hard drive? Well, that might possibly help explain just why my laptop was running rather slowly, and a few items wouldn’t install properly.


I decided to delete the partition, format the drive completely, and then reinstall Windows. As I deleted the partition for the “D” drive, my eyes suddenly fell on my external hard drive near my computer. That is when the horrible realization hit me…I had deleted the partition on my external hard drive!

Now, you may be unsure what a partition is…in an easy word, a hard drive is like a large, dark warehouse. All of the files you store are kept here. The partition is like an index, or database, where a map is kept which tells your computer where to find the files on the hard drive. Without the partition and index, the computer wanders into the “storeroom” and finds nothing there.

I had deleted the map.

I felt horribly sick. I dropped to my knees as the realization of what I’d done washed through me like a tidal wave of dread. I had just destroyed hundreds—possibly even thousands—hours of work.

I just stared at the screen.

I had completely destroyed the final copies of over five hundred “professional” photographs I’d taken, about five hours of raw video footage, and files I need for graduation this week.

Not knowing what else I could do, I did a search online and downloaded a program which claims that it can restore data which has been lost….the program has now been running for over five hours and has only analyzed about 17 percent of the drive.

I am hopeful though…

I hope I don’t throw up.

The whiner

Pin It I had a grumbling student in my classroom the other day. He was complaining about everything he possibly could…and when he finally exhausted his list, then thought of a few more things, just too completely annoy me. I finally looked at this boy and said,

“Well, Joey. I certainly hope you don’t drown in your pool of self-pity.”

The brilliance of this statement caught me, and I started to laugh. I grabbed a sticky note and wrote this down as he watched me, undoubtedly wondering just why I was writing it down at all (amidst a few well-deserved chuckles). I quickly explained, “That was really good. Quite the zinger there, you know.”

He just stared.

I have a feeling he had no idea what it meant. Ah well, no matter. I did, and it was enough to make me smile. It almost made his complaining worth it.

Almost.

Say...

Pin It What is it that we want to say, and yet don’t to those around us? Will we live our lives with regret, or with contentment knowing that we’ve spoken those things we’ve wanted?

No, I am not planning on dying anytime in the near future, however, I was thinking of the mortality of those around us. It would be a real shame not to say what we need to say.

That is, while we can.



And just a side note, yes, this song had been added into my "Soundtrack of Life."

Making mistakes

Pin It I had a student in my class a few years ago…I’ll choose to call him, “Joey.”

Joey had a hard time for several years. He was the type of kid who was really smart, but lazy, and didn’t ever want to do anything. He wanted to get away with whatever he could, and would often use the right words with people to get his way.

He was really good at this.

I had this boy in my class, and from day one I tried to work with him. Did I do so every single day? No. Let’s be honest…there were a few days where it was more about survival, and just making it to the end of the day was the goal. However, did I work with him on a regular basis?

Yes. I did.

When he left my classroom I heard of problems he was still having, and things which weren’t so good in his life. You see, he was making a lot of poor decisions which, in turn, led to bigger and worse things in his life. It probably started off with lying and being dishonest with others, and this evolved into things I’ll not mention.

I got a call from a friend of mine who wanted to know if I’d seen Joey lately. I admitted that I hadn’t seen him for a few years, and had lost track of him. I came to find out that he’d made even more poor choices in his life, which have since led to him losing a lot of the freedoms which we take for granted.

In essence, his life is over.

I once heard the following quote, “Always Remember, no matter how bad you are, you are not totally useless. You can always be used as a bad example.”

I hope that my other students can learn from his mistakes…