Julie Rox -- Julie

Some of you may have noticed that the quantity and quality of my blogging has decreased since the inception of the Lithia Writers Collective blog, though you may not have mentioned it out of discretion, and I do appreciate that. See, when we first started it, I was a "reading coach" at the high school, and since no one REALLY knows what a reading coach is, I spent a lot of time in my office, writing my blog, and thinking about teaching reading. Then, this summer, with no work, I spent a lot of time writing my blog, and then watching the X-Files. So yes, I was blogging, and happily so. But was I actually Happy? Satisfied professionally? Nope.

Now, I'm teaching full time at the middle school, and while there is precious little time to blog, there is, finally, professional satisfaction.

I love teaching middle school. I love the smell of floor wax in the halls after a vacation. I love when some kid writes "Julie Rox" on my dry erase board. I love leafing through their little Language Arts notebooks and seeing how seriously they take everything I ask them to do. I adore their poems about palm trees and mean teachers, stories about zombies and broken arms. I am over the moon when they discuss "Flowers for Algernon" for 15 minutes without me saying a word. When they pass a note in class, I have to take the note and act stern and disappointed, but I secretly can't wait to read it after class. I come to work at 7:30, leave at 4 and more often than not work at home in the evenings and on weekends.

So yes, I am inconsistently pursuing my own writing, but I pursue THEIR writing with vigor. And I'm Happy.

Stay tuned for next week's blog: How One Parent Email Can Make Me Believe That All of the Above is a Load of Crap and I Need to Find a New Profession.