Back in the Saddle Again

This is us. Actually was us - just a month and a half ago. Little Miss Rayah Lynn Rose Bressette in the loving arms of her mother, Chrystal. The once-little-tiny baby, born August 12, 2006 at 1:52 AM, weighing in at 8lbs 1oz, has now grown to a shade less than 13 lbs. Ahhh, the wonders of Mama's milk. She's quite the looker - sharing many of her sisters' qualities, and her Dad's dazzling good looks. Okay, stop laughing now. Her sisters absolutely adore her, and love to help out when needed. We're very happy with her, and hopefully she reciprocates.

Anyway, I'm back teaching Grade 7 again. My ultimatum worked (I guess). Let's be honest - this has been the worst year in all 8 years of teaching - and it's only the beginning of October. Let's review September. We started on September 5. By the second week, I've found my students passing baggies of weed. I've got the school's "public enemy #1" as seen by the students and the community in my room, and just last week, one of my student's baby (2 weeks old) suddenly passed away. I've got parents crying because they don't know what to do with their kids' transformation into teenagers (testosterone? estrogen? attitudes? experimentation?). The staff's morale is below ground zero. I know that there are some students in my room that do truly look to me as a positive role model, but I've had it with the stress of this job. Let's not forget the recent rash of school shootings in the last two weeks. I always knew it wasn't a career for me. I'm seriously looking into either a career change, or going back to school for my Master's Degree, perhaps in Applied Kinesiology.

There's my rant, my beef, my b!+c#!ng, etc. Thank you for listening.