It starts

School has started and I jumped in with a splash. There have already been hilarious things, sad things, serious things, and funny things. This year I am a lot more confident in my teaching, and therefore a lot more content. My students are still behaving like angels and I'm being a lot more aggressive in encouraging their good behavior and good grades.

Of the funny:

My first occurrence of the ridiculous was when I had a dream before school started that my classroom had a bowl of bright silver flashing fish swimming around in it. It was a happy dream, and thinking that it boded well, I bought a fishbowl and three little minnows. By the time I had gotten to school, two of them had died. One still looked well though, so I left him the Friday before Labor Day happily toddling about his realm. Tuesday morning, the first day of school, I walked in to find him glassy-eyed and belly up. Over the weekend I had come up with the idea of comparing studying to keeping a fish alive - you study every day just like how you feed a fish every day and by finals he'll be strong and happy. So I revised my scheme and gave a little talk about how, come finals, they need to make sure that they aren't the dead fish. Last night was back to school night, and so I bought a new fish, an iridescent beta this time, so that the parents wouldn't face the empty bowl. My freshman have named him Pedro Gracias Si. You can tell that they have only had a few days of Spanish.

The second occurrence of the ironic was this week in my cooking class. The first week with the garlic mashed potatoes went over really well. This week we attempted white bread. Because bread needs some hours to rise, but my class has only 55 minutes, I let the students have the bread rise over night. This morning they baked their loaves and proudly presented me with golden brown goodness. I cut them open to test that they were done, and inhaled a noseful of potent alcoholic disaster. The students, good little Christians that they are, complained that their bread smelled, "nasty." I breathed a sigh of relief that they didn't recognize the smell, and told them that sometimes bread just doesn't work out. I'm consoling them with pancakes our next class. As soon as class dismissed I called maintenance to clear out the brewish bundles and hoped the smell would dissipate before the next class came in. It doesn't do to teach Christian High School students how to make alcoholic pastries!

Of the happy:

Josh and I are moving in a few weeks. I can't wait. We'll be renting our own sweet little condo. I am fanatically joyful about this development as I'll be much closer to work, friends, family, and good cycling trails. We will be saving my paycheck for the next year and then attempting to buy a house once more. We are so blessed.