Update, short version

When I last blogged in 2020, I was teaching high school German online and in person simultaneously during the continuing pandemic.  

By the spring of 2021, it was clear to me that I needed to make a change, which sadly meant leaving the German program I had built up over the last 8 years.  The original plan was to teach middle school math during a more normal school year, but the Delta variant and life circumstances intervened, and I'm watching this year of pandemic teaching from the sidelines.

When I told people I was taking the year off, they asked what I was doing with all my free time.  I loved this Twitter post as an answer:

 

I've been loving having time to run, quilt, read, bake, sleep, and do crossword puzzles.  But some days it takes most of my energy to get out of bed and take a shower.

I've been taking a Russian class, something I haven't done since 1994.  I've forgotten a lot of the grammar, but a surprising amount of vocabulary is still in my long-term memory.

I've been going to lots of medical appointments.  It turns out that you can get severe tennis elbow from too much typing while hybrid teaching.  (Another reason I haven't blogged.) It also turns out that secondary trauma is a real thing, which isn't fixed by taking a few days off and some self-care.

I've been amazed by the understanding and compassion of people.  I've been heartbroken by the cruelty and selfishness of people.

I've been grieving the (non-COVID) death of my father and the COVID deaths of more than 5 million people worldwide.

I've been slowly healing, and most importantly, I've been realizing this:

I am a teacher.  Not by profession or job title, but by vocation, by calling.  I love taking difficult topics and making them fun and understandable to students.  This has always been me, and it isn't changed by where or if I'm working.  

I don't know what comes next in my teaching career.  If the pandemic has taught me anything, it's that the future is hard to predict.  But I know I'll continue to be a teacher.