I have been battling headaches every day for over a week, fearful of getting a migraine while at work.  I wake and my bones ache, ankles, hips, and knees cracking as I walk down the stairs.  My fingers are stiff and in pain from the rapidly evolving arthritis.  There's other stuff on the brain too.  But once I get to work, all is well.  My kids are so nice and good to me and each other.  We went on a field trip to Eastern State Penitentiary yesterday and the guide was the best one we've had yet.  He was complimentary to the students too.  He said they were so well behaved and polite - not what he is used to from high school students.  It made us proud of our kids.  I might have been beaming.  They were even well behaved on the bus and left absolutely no garbage behind.  That was a first for me.  Then, at least two of them thanked me when disembarking.  Are you kidding me?  That might have also been a first.

It reminded me of the times I have brought kids to Europe.  Trips are no cinch to plan.  It is an extremely overwhelming task.  Of all the students I have brought abroad, only one thanked me for all my work after the trip to Paris.  Another teacher who wrangled her way onto my last trip got a ton of thank you's.  So, you see, getting thanks yesterday stunned me.  I went home on a cloud.  Friendship situations might really suck right now - actually, all the time - but my kids are super and make me feel good.

Then I get a student who is in a real sour mood.  I do not take those things personally, no matter how much she/he might be snapping at me.  The thing that hurts is that I cannot make the person feel better.  I want my room - or, in a perfect world, the whole school - to be where you can drop the sucky parts of life at the door and be comfortable and happy, at least for 45 minutes but hopefully more.  I let myself down when I cannot make my room that place for my kids.  I want my students to do well and work all the time in my class.  My thinking is that if they can succeed at producing some great images in class, that great end result will lift their mood and give them a greater sense of self worth.  But I know they don't think that way.  To them, I am just pestering.  They want to be left alone.  And I cannot do that.  I failed at that today and it is bothering me.