Welcome Back

The children come back to school tomorrow. I was annoyed at first, then I was excited, and now I'm preoccupied with other "chores" I gotta do tomorrow - choose a new credit card, overtally for a course, write a letter to a hospital that billed me incorrectly, since they have a disconnected number.
My new class of malleable sixth graders will spend all day in homeroom with me. We will be designing, decorating, filing, voting, surveying, stretching, secret-sharing, getting aggravated and irritated, and in the back of my mind I'll be trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing in that school again. Inspire? Motivate? Over-used, broad and empty. De-certify? Probably not in my second year. I guess I'm just going to try to show them another way of living. That's what I accomplished, successfully, last year. And if they appreciate a book or two, or write something they're proud of, by next June, cool. I'm keeping a level head this year, even if it means saying "fuck it" to some things that truly need my energy. It's too easy to get sick in that building. Too easy. I just wanna go in, do what I gotta do, stay a step ahead or two of the principal (which is so hard) and be out for good come next summer. I'm taking all that good chart paper with me! For my survival kit, I'm gonna need potted orchids, photos of people I love, newspaper clippings, turquoise beads... if there was time and space for yoga, I'd bring my mat too. Anything to keep me afloat this year.