Love, Life and Everything

      Tomorrow, I go back to work.  I love my job as a reading interventionist.  It's my calling in life and seeing my students learn to read when they struggled before is one of the most rewarding things in my life.  But this year is different, so different.  I normally feel a bit of remorse at the end of summer, I don't like getting up early.  I don't like having to plan out my lunches or making sure I have all my things I need for work.  But, I usually get over it, because the joy of seeing those students that I have missed so dearly over the summer always outweighs the regret of summer's end. But not this year. I'm crying as I type this.  This year, I will be going back to work, yes, but my students won't be there to hug me and tell me all the awesome things they did over the summer.  This year, we will be starting school online only.  We don't really know for how long.  The governor has set a tentative date for September 7th.  But things change so quick

Essential workers, nurses, first responders, firefighters, doctors, police, and now teachers are being hailed as heroes.  Why? Because we are doing things that others could never, or would ever want to do. I've heard others say that they don't want to be seen as a hero, but society keeps pushing it on us.  Here's the thing.  I don't feel like a hero at all.  I'm not a hero.  Not by a long shot.  I'm simply a human being, doing what I do best in adverse conditions.  I believe that others feel the same way.  We aren't heroes, we are everyday people.  For some of us, we are fulfilling our calling, which we swore an oath, or made a commit, to do regardless of what was thrown at us.  That doesn't make us heroes, that makes us compassionate, living, breathing, human beings who are passionate about helping others.  If that makes us heroes, then I suggest that we need to reevaluate how we few ourselves in society.  Sure, it's not easy, no one said it would

But no one said it would be.  I knew it was going to happen, I knew we would be teaching online at some point during this pandemic.  Other countries were doing it, other states started shutting down their schools.  I tried to prepare myself.  My school tried to prepare us.  But, can you really prepare for something like this?  Sure, you can learn all you can about online platforms, and how to deliver lessons online, but, nothing can ever, ever prepare you for the emotional impact this has on a person.  I miss my kids.  I miss them terribly, and this was very, very hard for me.  To the point that I ended each week despondent and crying constantly.  I was taking it out on myself, and my family.  I almost wished that it was summer and I didn't have to see their faces on the computer screen, because that was harder than not seeing them at all. I wasn't sure if I could keep doing it.  I knew I had to because they were counting on me bring some sort of normalcy to their lives too. I

I recently allowed myself to play along with a catfisher, just to see what it it's like and to understand how many people fall for their schemes.  Surely be that stupid to fall for these schemes, I thought.  So, I played along, just to see if it would be that easy for them to trap you.  Here's my story: I use a few different social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and the lesser-known, but less restrictive MeWe (I will talk about why I like MeWe so much in another blog someday).  Any one of those could attract a catfisher, but this particular time it was on MeWe.  Just a point of clarification, this wasn't the first time someone tried to catfish me, it was just the first time I decided to pretend I bought into it and take it as far as I could.  I decided I would play along, just to see where it led, and how long it would take for the individual to A) confess his undying love, and/or his desperate need for me to help him and B) ask for money in any form.  It didn'