I think my first blog was a DeadJournal, started in January of 2002. The first post, though, inexplicably, says "This isn't much different than blogger," which begs the question: did I, at some point, have a different blogger site? ... That's a little creepy to think about. (I also just weirdly fell into the old DeadJournal site. Reading things from Sophomore Year me is just hideously bizarre).
I transitioned to Xanga at some point in September 2002 (guess DeadJournal was unappealing). I actually had decent bouts with consistency on my Xanga -- pre-facebook, it was a decent way to communicate with some of my friends who were at that point spread around the country. I sometimes still update it, but not as often. I guess the microblogging done through Facebook these days suits me much, much better.
I started this blog as the educational unrest in California continued to plague my life plans. As a teacher, I often feel completely and utterly powerless to do anything about the situation. It's like a free fall all the time, which is pretty horrible when it involves not just your job, but your calling. Not being really that protest/political-outcry inclined (not that I don't have opinions, but I just think I don't have the civil disobedience gene), I felt like blogging was at least a teeny, tiny way to get people paying attention to the humans behind the supposedly-power and money hungry, vacation-getting, lazy-after-tenure teachers that apparently pack our schools and drain our state budget. I am really, really good at what I do (most of the time) and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that teaching is my calling. I can remember having dreams of teaching as early as fifth grade, and I know that this is the one single profession that fulfills me and propels me and sustains me. So blogging on this particular site enables me to do that.
The problem is, though, that teaching, especially this year, renders me so tired and with so little free time that trying to keep a blog in my free time, on my home computer, is nearly impossible. It's sad, really, that it's so sporadic because I always feel so empowered when I update it. But it's sort of a weird paradox: Decide to write blog to demonstrate how much time teachers spend doing their job. Discover that this time you spend doing your job is what prevents you from blogging about the time you spend doing your job. Le sigh.
I like blogging about my life as a teacher because I'd like to think that it's clear that despite complains about the non-teaching things (making my own copies and such), I love what I do. I am still incredibly proud of this post that I wrote because it so well captures me and my students at our best; more my students, actually. I still beam from ear to ear when I think back to this day, and I'm so, so, so happy that I committed it to memory through setting it down into this blog. Even if this blog doesn't necessarily achieve its envisioned purpose, at least I'll always have that entry -- and a few of the others -- to look back on and be proud of.
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