Hello friends.

It has been a very long time. Thank you for waiting, for checking back, for reading this.

As you may or may not know, teaching has a new element for me this year: I’m teaching AP Psychology. And it. is. so. hard.

There are some really amazing things: I’m learning so much, and it’s awesome to watch students that I taught as ninth graders who are now juniors and seniors. I’m so proud of them and how hard they’re working. We have a lovely give and take; we talk about what’s working for them and what’s not, we negotiate so that they’re challenged but so that it’s not so hard that they can’t do it. And it’s nice to be intellectually stimulated instead of feeling like I’m doing the same thing all the time.

But it is so hard. I’m so tired. And the ninth graders took a while to settle down, so up until now I’ve either been overwhelmed with trying to learn the AP content and planning for the extremely fast pace or dealing with 14-year-olds who literally can’t understand why fighting isn’t the way to solve a problem. Usually both, if I’m honest. Add to that a chronic sleep debt, some mild anxiety(though thankfully MUCH better than it could be), less time for yoga/my friendships/everything, and, well, it’s been rough. This past weekend was the first time I’ve seen any of my friends since school started (shout out to Wilson and Seinfeld for the peanut brittle and K for the deep heart-to-heart). I also turned 31 in there somewhere so there’s that.

I feel really fortunate to have family and friends who are so understanding, and especially to have a partner who picks up my slack and then some. I feel indebted to my amazing sister and mom, who check in with me nearly every day and remind me that there’s a life outside of school. I feel so thankful for my colleagues, who have been nothing but supportive, and my friends who keep me laughing and in good spirits.

Considering what it could be, it’s going pretty well. That being said, it’s about all I can do to follow the plot of whatever TV show I’m watching, let alone sit down and write a coherent, thoughtful blog entry.

I’m hoping that in the coming weeks I can get ahead of where I am right now (and sleep, oh god, so much sleep) and build myself enough of a cushion that I’ll have time to come back to blogging. In the meantime, thanks for being you and for reading.