A sob story

(hey, remember when I had long hair?)

I really miss my coworkers at Summit.

I had just about THE best friends there.

As much as I love my new school, I haven't quite bonded with anyone like I did at Summit.

Don't get me wrong--the staff is INCREDIBLE.

But I am definitely the youngest teacher--by maybe 15 years?

And they all know each other, and have inside jokes, and eat in a secret teachers lounge.

Just kidding about that last part...kind of.

On the first day of school, I went into the teachers lounge, and waited for teachers to show up.

Nada, nothing, no one.

I was beginning to wonder if I messed up the schedule--maybe it wasn't really lunch yet!

Then, the next day, I found out there is a "make-shift" teachers lounge on the third floor of the school.

I decided to give that a shot the next day.

And wala! I found all of the teachers.

As awesome and friendly as they are, I felt just a little awkward.

I hate being the newbie.

I don't know their names, or what subjects they teach--and I feel like I need to interject and ask questions every 15 seconds to understand the conversations.

C'mon--can't we talk about things that didn't happen last year? (or 20 years ago?)

The past few days I have been eating my lunch in my classroom.

I surprisingly enjoyed it the first day or so.

I turned on Netflix and watched the Office.

And unlike in the secret faculty lounge, I understood all of the jokes and knew all of their names. ;)

On my third day of eating-by-myself-in-my-empty-classroom-while-watching-netflix I learned something terrible.

Netflix is now blocked on my school's internet system.

I can't tell you how devastated I was.

I had just found new lunch friends (jim, michael, pam dwight)--and then lost them all within a matter of days. 

ha.

So, today, I ate in my classroom.

By myself.

And told myself--this is good. You enjoy it still. Use this time to grade.

But instead, I felt lonely.

And I wished I had hiked the two flights of stairs to awkwardly sit with a group of people I don't know.

Because, let's face it.

I gotta be surrounded by people to feel happy.

Isn't that why I teach?

ha.

Will I have the courage to do it tomorrow?

We shall see.

And that is my Wednesday sob story.