Too Excited to Sleep!

I went to bed last night, or rather this morning around 12:30 but I just couldn't sleep. I was too excited about possibly being hired at Capitol Hill High School, one of Oklahoma City's inner city schools that has long had a bad reputation. In reality the school's reputation has been overstated, underrated and quite often simply exaggerated. Kids are kids! I've been an inner city school teacher for over six years now and there's nothing new under the Sun believe me. What you see if what you saw years and year ago in Chicago, L.A., NYC, Miami, Dallas, you name a big city and my kids (well, they will be my kids) are mirror images of these kids. The names have changed - the heart is the same. The really cool this is; they DO want to learn. You just have to know how to get past the tough looks to find that desire some times.

I got up this morning just a few minutes ago and brewed the coffee. There was no reason to lay in the bed thinking about it. I was planning how I was going to be decorating my room. I was taking measurements, buying blinds, getting the paint brushes out. I saw myself going to the Lakeside Teachers Store and buying all the things I want in my room too - colored chalk, markers, tacks, posters, I was even thinking about how I was going to set up the whiteboard with objectives, vocabulary, and the project or assignment for the day. I think I was even dusting off and counting literature books in my dreams! (Maybe if I passed them out in my dream I could actually see the pretty faces of the sophomores I'm going to be teaching! Do you think? Because I'll run back to bed and dream a little more if I think I could do that!) LOL

It was obvious to me (and the dogs who kept staring at me) that I wasn't going to get any sleep. Time for the eggs to be beaten up. I broke two and cut up a little tomato, olive, some spinach and even grated the Parmesan...breakfast came early today. It's 6:00 and I'm thinking I only have 3 more hours before someone calls me and asks me if I want the job. What if they don't offer it to me? Oh, I would be so sad - - I really would be. I'd be thinking about those would-be faces all day. I'd probably drive down to the school, park in the lot, walk into the building and grab the new principal by the lapel....hey hire me!!! But I'd be smiling. I'm like that, I smile.

During the interview with the principal, the vice, and the department chair I was told that I would be preparing the sophomores for the EOI (End of Instruction) test, and that English II was the number 1 priority in Oklahoma for these kids, that and Algebra I, but you know, MATH is a four-letter word to me, I try not to use it very often. Its important to know that I can spell it, I can write about it, I can even instruct others to write about it - but I don't use it that much. I can't wait to be the beacon of light for some of these guys I know I have it in me. I know I have the tools and the models....I just need a big room, lots of desks filled up with ready-to-go workers who have that good-morning look in their eyes. I think coffee should be optional for high schoolers don't you? Starbucks could open in the hallway...that would make me happy.

So...I wait. I wait, and I dream. I dream and I plan. I plan and I wait. I'm about to open up a can of prayer too and just ask God to hurry up this time thing...sometimes He can be sooooo slow about things. I have work to do! *grins*