So here it is....

The "exciting" news that I was referring to in my last post.... several weeks ago... but you'll have to jump down a little ways if you're only here to find that out.

Lately, it seems as if blogging simply isn't a priority in my life... never has been I suppose, except for November when I went 30 odd days in a row.... don't expect that again. School's back in full swing, wrestling has packed my schedule, and track begins on Monday. I'm staying busy doing everything but writing, and I've enjoyed it quite a bit.

Wrestling officially ended for me today, with my last practice, but the kids go for another two weeks. We're into our State championship meets these last few weeks, so as the JV coach, I don't have to go through all of the practices this week.... plus track is starting, so my priorities have changed now..... and I'm a lot more excited than I was with wrestling.

We're getting into our nice weather now, if you can say that the average weather of sunny an d 60 and nightly lows of 40 aren't "nice", so I'm pretty excited to be able to spend time outside again. Track will be fun too, since I really enjoy spending time in this weather, plus I enjoy running and I get to coach hurdles, which I love too. It'll be nice to get a bit of a tan too... if I can keep from getting fried come April and May when the temps start hitting the upper 90s..... ;)

School is in full swing right now too, which is nice since I'm not "lecturing" about writing techniques and grammar stuff and the kids are actually learning by doing now. The grading isn't fun, but I've only got 63 comp. students this semester, compared to 150 last semester, so it's a bit easier.

My freshman are just finishing up their Short Story unit, which I've enjoyed. I think they're finally getting the hang of writing literary analysis essays (and doing discussion) too, so the amount of thinking in my classroom has moved up a few notches too.... at least in the majority of my students.

We're going to start reading Old Man and the Sea this week, and I can't wait. I'm approaching it a little differently this year by showing the movie in conjunction with the reading. I hope that by showing little sections of the movie every few days, the kids will be a little bit more connected to the literature. We'll see though, this is something new for me to try.

IF YOU'RE ONLY INTERESTED IN THE BIG NEWS, IT STARTS HERE....

I'm moving back to Indiana this summer.....

So when my Indiana teaching license expired in 2007, I decided to renew it and see what happened. When I reapplied, Indiana ended up giving me a 5 year license, which I didn't expect (since I have never taught in Indiana and there's a mentor requirement which I didn't figure would be waived), but they did. My first license there required 3 years of teaching, a 2-year mentor program, and about 90 hours of professional development classes. Since I've never taught in Indiana, I didn't figure they'd accept my 1 year mentor program or 230 hours of professional development from Arizona. Lucky for me, they did... so that got things started for me.

I've applied to a number of different school corporations and surprisingly, I've already got an interview set up. I don't figure to hear much until April or so, but that's fine. If all else fails and I can't get a job, I'll just go and get my Master's Degree... I need to do it sometime.

So there it is.... we'll see what happens over the next few months. Hopefully I land a job as wonderful as the one I have now at a school with an equally awesome staff. If not, I guess I'll figure something out.

So Becca and Lara, there it is....