More on my shiny new life.

I was thinking last month about all the fine people I know at my old school who went back to work today. They reported at about 7:15 or so, and on the 12th, the kids show up. They'll have five classes each of about 30 kids. If I had not resigned, I would have spent today making 5 seating charts and writing out introductory letters to parents, writing 2 weeks worth of lesson plans, and trying to arrange my room to meet all the rules:

• Make sure your content standards are posted where students can see them.
• Make sure your class rules are written in font that can be easily read by non-readers.
• Make sure all the tables (yes, table, not desks) are arranged in a way that kids can see the white board, AND the smart board, AND the television.
• Format my lessons so that the CPS system is used (with the smart board) EVERY DAY.

A month ago, when I was thinking about this, I was wondering I was wondering if I'd miss it.

So this is how my day went, instead:

I have a morning run now on most days at 6 am. Today at 7:15 I took my kid to the same school where I used to work for cross country practice, but after the 12th, I won't do that any more.

Then I went home, showered, made myself a latte and egg-beater omelet, then drove my car to a shady spot not far from my house, and then pulled my bike out of the back and commuted downtown. It was about an 11 or 12 mile commute, and I got there early, time enough to look over charts and such for the day.



My commute is about 40 minutes. It's a flat dedicated bike trail along the river. Then I turn in and head down a few nearly deserted side streets, past a coffee shop, and then at the counseling center, park the bike in a storage room, and change out of my shorts. Most of the people downtown are used to cyclists and drive pretty slowly there anyway.

Today I had a full day of clients and it was definitely challenging, but not the kind of challenging where you take lots of deep breaths to avoid throwing things at people; it was more the problem-solving kind of challenging.

At the end of my day, I got home later than I used to, but again: that commute, along the river, which provided a lovely 40 minute buffer between work and home.

Is this my new life? Well, I'll take it, thank you very much.

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