Two solid days of sleep and a day of general relaxing today seems to have done the trick I had hoped it would: I think I’m ready to go back to school. It was a good choice to take Friday off. I didn’t even feel guilty. That’s how crappy I felt.

I tried to get my essays graded for tomorrow, but I didn’t get them all done. I got about half done. I’ll see how much I can get accomplished during the day tomorrow; hopefully I can get most, if not all of them done. It’s the last week of the trimester and I’m kind of sad about it. First of all, it was my first full trimester at Roseville, so these are my first kids, sort of. Secondly, I got to teach all writing this trimester and next trimester I have no writing-centered classes so I’m going into the trimester a little anxious. I want to do well by the kids and I know I’m going to have a lot of learning and a lot of work to do. Anyone who has taught knows that the first time through something there are bumps and bruises. There are fewer with writing, because I’ve taught so much of it. This will be a new experience.

A book I got with the Minnesota Writing Project, Pose, Wobble, and Flow is actually pretty inspirational in this regard. I really hate making mistakes or not doing as well as I think I could do. I suppose it’s a perfectionist-type attitude. I struggle with it. Doing things where I’m not very sure of myself makes me pretty anxious. I’ve been working on this a lot – mosaic art has helped because there’s no way to be perfect with broken materials. I have to accept imperfection; in fact, that’s part of it’s beauty. The book uses yoga as an analogy for teaching – setting up the pose, wobbling, strengthening the parts that need strengthening, trying again. I am not a big yoga fan – I get bored too easily – but the analogy works for me.

I’m going to try to be gentle on myself, both this week and next trimester. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not always the most gentle person, but that’s another thing I’ve been working on. A little better every day.