Day 4,232—Drowning in Leaves—

 

Another short day when I tried to take it easy. My left leg is still bothering me, but I swear it is getting slightly better; I could be wrong. It is going to be hard not to do more miles over the weekend, so right now I am planning on at least a 20-mile weekend, and I will see how that feels. I still have no plans for my birthday, and I am getting to the point where I just don’t care. I don’t even want to take the day off work at this point.

      I had a student ask me why I looked so old yesterday when I told him to go to class. It was funny because I was thinking about how often I hear the opposite, and I prefer the student to think I look old than young, but I know he said it to hurt my feelings. It is always funny to see their brains scramble for something rude they can say to make me upset. I always look at them and wonder how this is their default setting. Why do they think this is the way to interact with adults? But they’re kids, so I give them a pass. When you grow up living with people who go out of their way to trigger you and belittle everything you care about, it makes it very hard for you to be unprepared for these kinds of attacks.

        There are only two days of school left until break, counting today! I have a busy day today, including a virtual observation of my small group, but that’s okay. When you’re busy, the time goes by faster, in my experience, and I am still enjoying this more than teaching. When I was teaching, I had a clear goal of what success should look like, so there was always a constant reminder that I was missing the mark.