remembering...

I'm grateful for things that help me remember why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Today one of my kids who is on the point of moving (his family is transient right now) was upset because he got in trouble for wandering the halls. He was still mad at me when he left school today, and I don't know if he'll ever be back. I hope he remembers the good times that we had in our class, and that he doesn't let something so impermanent as today's punishment taint his memories of his time at our school. I want to remember how he gets so excited for a new book, how he rips through his math assignments with almost always all right answers, how he can do anything that he decides to do, and that he has a can-do attitude about school and life most of the time, in spite of his rough home life.I want to remember that he came back in the classroom (still muttering about how stupid the school is) to get the book that I gave him. I want to remember that I loved this punk kid and that I made a difference in his volatile life. (And I want him to come back to school on Tuesday!)

I graded some math tests today, and one of my girls just crossed out a whole section of the test without doing it, accompanied by a note that said something like "I didn't really feel like doing these."  Oh, honey, do I ever know how you feel!  Sometimes I think that the reason why I'm supposed to do grad school is so that I can really relate to my kids when they don't want to do something academic or struggle with it. Nothing in my undergrad years really pushed me.  Remembering that my students' work is just as tough to slog through for them as mine is for me makes it easier to start the painful process of a thesis writing session.  Of course, she WILL finish the test.  And I WILL finish my thesis, defend it, and GRADUATE!
On the way to Idaho tonight, I saw a bulletin board that said "Make Miracles Happen."  Graduation will be a miracle, but I'm working to make it happen. And it will.

Finally, (back to the remembering theme) it seems like every time I start entertaining ideas of going back to an omnivore lifestyle after this year, I hear about someone else with diabetes (my professor this semester) or cancer (Francis' open house was today, and his father just passed away from cancer, and Francis has been battling it himself).  Maybe someday I'll feel okay about eating meat and dairy again every once in a while.  For now, I'm a happy herbivore, and grateful for reminders about why I'm doing this.

Today's stats:
W: 139
E: pm yoga
B: green smoothie
L: green smoothie (the kids saw it and wanted to know if it was the same as Mathis' moustache in the Christmas pictures)
D: a couple of bananas, carrots, and hummus (I was going to eat my salad on the way home, but I wasn't hungry, so I didn't...I also didn't find my fork right away and salad isn't exactly a finger food:) The hummus was good, and it didn't make me sick like I usually feel afterwards...must be the chips I've been eating with it!