Is it really ten weeks since I started this gig?

This weekend, while luxuriating with my hipster-writer boyfriend at our four-star hotel FOR FREE, I was reminiscing about my one year running mediocre cross country for my prep school across the bronx from my current place of employment. I told him how hard it was, how painful, but how once in a whiile, with the leaves turning, the hills suddenly seemed easy, my feet light, and I got "runner's high"-- regardless of my final time.
I never thought I'd say this about teaching, but I sort of got teacher's high today. Something about my students was so pleasant--- maybe they were gentle because the movie last week soothed them, or maybe they knew they had midterms to look forward to tomorrow, or maybe I was just oblivious to how little they were actually accomplishing, but nonethess, I found them engaging and charming. One girl was grumpy because it was her birthday-- even the fake cellphone/calculator (value: $4) I gave her couldn't completely lighten her mood, but I saw the teeny corners of a smile struggling through. Another student, devasated at the varsity football team's loss yesterday, refused to do work for the first half an hour, but I coaxed him out of his determined misery and we made a date to listen to hot 97 second period tomorrow. In my classroom. Because my students think I put classical music on in the background for my own amusement, bien sur. They don't realize that the minute hot 97 comes on, they start bopping in sync-- all 35 of them!
The best part of the day (and the kind of thing that makes any day good) was how adorable my freshmen were. I chatted with them about the Greek Gods, the stories we'd read, and the new Harry Potter movie (**** btw, funniest and saddest yet) without once having to stop any sort of violent physical thrashing or shouting...

so that was my teachers high.


And as we reviewed for said midterms, I realized that a few of them had actually learned a thing or two.