The Five (#10 Slowly Getting Later Edition)

1. The Iditarod is happening right now. When I started at my current job, eight years ago, I worked with several classes that studied the Iditarod and I became a fan. One of the ways I supported the classes was by curating the videos posted on the website so that students got to see the ones that highlighted some particularly unique aspect of the experience or some detail that the students had learned/read about. (Also, I was able to weed out any in which the mushers used language that wasn't quite fit for middle school.) We had a school "insider" subscription which gave us access to all the posted videos as well as GPS tracking of the race and all kinds of other details. The curriculum has changed since then, and classes no longer spend time studying the Iditarod in particular. I, however, am a fan for life, and now pay for my own "insider" subscription so I can watch the videos and keep up with the race. Once in a while I will share a particularly interesting update with one of the teachers. The whole thing is utterly fascinating to me. It has been especially interesting to watch the race evolve through the COVID pandemic - it was in the middle of the race in 2020 when things started to shut down. The website, even without a subscription, is pretty interesting and full of information. Learning about the race is a great tie-in for children who love adventure stories and have read some of Gary Paulsen's accounts of survival, both fiction and nonfiction. I would love to go to Alaska someday and see the places where the race takes place, but I don't know that I'm hearty enough to actually travel to any of them!

2. Do you ever suffer from book panic? Every once in a while I will feel myself working into a crisis when I think about how fast books are being published and thinking about all the books I know about that I've never read and all the books that will be published in the future that I will want to read. It's not an exaggeration to say that my "to be read" pile is several lifetimes long. When my hormones aren't in attack mode, I am able to think of it from a more delightful angle: I know I will NEVER run out of things I want to read. 

3. Are you ever disappointed that you still need to work on things like regulating your emotions as an adult? No, just me? Having two teenagers (delightful as they are) of my own, and working with hundreds of middle school students (delightful as they are), I am no stranger to frustration and hurt feelings. I'm a super emotional person...Do I think you're upset with me? Then I'll probably cry. I can't seem to help it. But I do try to keep in mind that, most of the time, the decisions the teens and tweens in my life make have almost nothing to do with me. Sometimes they are upset about circumstances that I have nothing to do with and I just get in the way of their emotions. I'm 100% inclined to meet them where they are and get just as worked up as them - but I continue to learn, a little more each year, to separate that knee-jerk emotional reaction from my actual response. I don't have to throw fuel on whatever fire is in front of me. This is easier with my students than my own children, but I keep working on it. Sigh.

4. This past weekend I drove to St. Louis to pick Harper up for her exciting spring break in Ohio. There was some kind of backup on the interstate so my GPS rerouted me onto rural country roads to avoid whatever the situation on I-70 was. I was driving between cornfields when a HUGE bald eagle swooped low over the road right in front of my car. Don't worry, I did not hit it! I wish it had been safe and/or possible to take a picture in that moment because it was magnificent. I don't think I'd ever seen one so close, and definitely not with its wings fully spread. It took my breath away. 

5. Speaking of driving to pick up Harper, we finally secured a vehicle for her to drive. So she'll head back to school on her own after this break. I'm glad we worked it out that she could have a car - our jobs just aren't flexible enough to always be able to drive back and forth when she needs to be picked up. This will make life much, much easier. It is a little bittersweet though, because we've had a lot of good time in the car together the last several years, especially driving back and forth to visit colleges. I'm not going to be sorry not to drive six hours two days in a row, but I am going to miss those little bubbles of time with my girl.