The Scampering Horse

   This is my first year as a teacher. I teach middle school math, Civics, and English. I am not sure if civics should be capitalized and math should not. The capitalization of English as a subject, I am confident on. In my mind, English is much less capitalized than the other two, because I require so much prep time, and they make me a little anxious. Teaching poetry elements is like swimming in a hot tub.    The school I teach at is surrounded by farmland. The middle school and high school are combined. The superintendent office is in the building. All the students have the same lunch period. We play 8 man football, and are seriously considering going to 6 man. There is not even an Alco here. It is a small school.    I have the 7th graders three times during the day. They move from class to class together. I see them for English, Civics, and Math. I also frequently eat lunch with them in the cafeteria. I also see them before school while they are playin...

My last post, when I ran 33 miles in one day, I was the queen of the world. Today, I ran 0 miles and I am the queen of nothing. Work was hard today. I wasn't feeling one-hundred percent physically-tummy issues. Also, I was tired. Plus, since I am new and taking each day as it comes, I wasn't absolutely prepared in every way for every class period, and my students were in and out of classes testing for NEWA (that stands for something), so they were off their schedule. Also, I got out of bed late, and my two year old didn't have any clean shirts so he had to re-wear yesterday's dirty shirt, and I was out of peaches for breakfast and I had to have apples with my cottage cheese instead. Peaches are better. And these were not the first defeats of the season. Last week I spent a ton of time with my dad fighting a speeding ticket in Sterling, CO, and the judge was nice but didn't like my defense and I had to pay that stupid ticket anyway. Don't get me wrong, I am...