Snippets of Life

I have a little girl in one of my ESL classes named Isis. Of all the students that I worry about with TAKS coming up in a month, she was at the top of my list. She's a smart little girl and probably one of the hardest working students I have this year, but her English is still developing. On Wednesday, we took a practice test to get a feel for where each of the students are and then yesterday they graded them in class. I was scanning the room as I was calling out the answers and happend to be looking at Isis as I called out the last answer and told them to count up how many they got right. She looked at me and mouthed that she only missed two and the smile on her face was priceless--some combination of shock and joy. Then, she leaned over to her reading partner, who is always having to explain words and passages to her, and asked her how many she got right. When Ana told her that she missed four, I could see that Isis was struggling to hold back a huge grin. It was just the shot of confidence that girl needed to beat this test. Totally made my day. It reminded me of the feeling I had after my first cross country meet of my senior year in high school. I had trained all summer, running almost every morning with my dad, but didn't really expect to see any dramatic changes because I'd never really been the best on the team. I think my face must have looked just like Isis' when I came across the finish line and my coach called out my time and my mile spilts, which were significantly faster than anything I'd ever run before.

Hard work pays off, and the great thing about it is that when you see the payoff, you're motivated to work just that much harder. I love it. Isis has been working her butt off these last few days, now not only talking about passing the test (which at first she thought was impossible) but about going for commended. This is why I teach. For little moments like this.

************************************************************************************

Oh, and by the way, I am typing this from my brand new computer. (Mine died a few months ago and I've been borrowing Landon's mom's, but then last week Landon's died, so he is borrowing his mom's for work...and so he said it was just time.)

Landon surprised me with flowers and candles and a card with cash in it yesterday when I got home from work. He'd driven around to all the electronics stores around us and found the best deals and computers I thought I would like and then took me on the tour last night. I ended up picking the exact computer he thought I would; he knows me so well. I love it.

And now, I'm off to bed. I've been off caffeine for about 4 months now because it was making my heart to weird skipping a beat things, so that means I need to actually rely on getting sleep now! The house is clean, the papers are graded, the plans for tomorrow are finalized, the dogs are already snoozing and there are fresh sheets on my bed calling my name.

Good night!