Lindsay L. O'Connor

Anthony, Anthony
oh, he says he can’t love me,
but I think he can, yes I think he can
and I told him that just before he ran,
just before he ran
he’s not lookin back, he’s not lookin back
cause he doesn’t want anything I have
or anything I am
Anthony, Anthony
oh, he says he can’t love me
Anthony

This is a darling little song by Nickel Creek that I’m singing as Chris, at his computer on the other side of the room, is doing a splendid accompaniment (how do you spell that??). It has nothing to do with anything whatsoever, but I was just singing it with my sweet husband, thinking how lucky I am to be married to someone who is amazing at doing back-up accompaniment to my silly songs and that it really is a great song. Check it out if you haven’t heard it.

This creation of this blog is my attempt to do a better job of journaling, but especially to record all the stories I come home from school with, day after day. Every time I recount something that happened at school to my dad, he says, “You need to be writing all this down! You could write a book about it some day.” I don’t have much confidence that these little musings will ever become a book, but it’s a nice thought and I do want to write them down.

It’s my second year teaching second grade, and I am living my dream, often terribly stressed but sometimes overjoyed at little successes. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ll never be half as good as the teacher I want to be, but I’m trying to remember to celebrate little moments of success and “personal bests.” I love my school and my students and can’t imagine doing anything else at this point in my life.

One of my students is a clever little girl who makes me laugh often. We were taking a very long math test one day and one question asked the kids to split some counters into groups and then tell what they noticed. I’m quite sure that the people who wrote the question expected something along the lines of “that there are some left over.” Not my student. My student’s test said “That my hand hurts.” Awesome.

I had a sweet moment last Friday when one of the boys in my class asked why I was always getting them new prizes for our prize box. While one important reason is that in order to make the reward at all effective, I have to keep changing it up, the other, equally important, reason that I told him was “because when I’m at the store I think about you all the time.” He responded, “But why don’t you think about yourself when you’re shopping?”

That’ll have to be all for now. Aside from journaling, I’m also trying to have some quality reading time each night (gotta finish the rereading of the Anne of Green Gables series!) I’m currently taking a brief break from Anne to read Marley and Me, which I’m really enjoying. So I’m off to read some more about the crazy canine and the family I’ve become so attached to. I know that’s bad grammar, but bad grammar is better than no grammar, right?