Yea!

This is just some random self indulgent middle of the night reflecting on things, probably not very interesting except to me:
The subscription blog has been up for almost three weeks now and I like it. I like the feeling of privacy, the safety in knowing that a much smaller group of people is reading what we are talking about.
I like knowing each person in our group at least a little bit. It just feels easier to write stuff. And it will certainly be easier to do the video piece once that gets going. I feel trust here where I didn’t before.
In spite of the crazy end of year stuff right now, the pollen, the kids’ resistance to instruction, the feeling of being beaten up by another year, all that stuff that we could do without, I still feel good. It’s kind of a here-comes-the-sun feeling.
The sun is rising.  How can it not? It’s the sun. It has to. I’m talking about Krashen based methods coming up. They had that 30 year incubation period, and now we, the early risers, are hearing the crow of the rooster and looking at a brand new day.
It couldn’t have come a moment too soon for me, as this 34th and final full time year (I’m looking for a part time gig next year) winds down. I’m exhausted yet it is that feeling of exhaustion of kicking it in at the end of a fast marathon. The endorphins are going.
I’m tired beyond description but damn I’m teaching in a way that I always have wanted to. A way I never thought remotely possible. So what’s not to love? And then I’ve met some of the most awesome people along the way. I keep meeting people in DPS who are great people and great teachers. With them, DPS had an ass kicking year, for sure, and is setting up many more.
Anyway, just waxing philosophic here in the middle of a sleepless night brought on by pollen and fatigue more than anything else. I’m not worried about some kid in my class, or some administrator, or some shit ass colleague. Been there done that.
 Next Wednesday will be the last full time day of formal instruction of my career. There have been around 6,000 such days (34 years x about 175 days per year = 5950 days). Just under 30,000 classes.
I’ll spend my birthday next Friday talking about “Comprehensible Input and PQA” at the Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Tribes Native Language Summit in Durant, Oklahoma. What a good way to spend a birthday, trying to help native languages have more birthdays and not die.
I was scared all this time, but I seemed always to be carried along by a very loving force in each one of those 30,000 classes, no matter how bad things got. I’m guessing I taught around 5,000 students (34 x about 150 students per year) in all. Pretty much done with it full time. Just a few more days.
I hated most of it. AP French Language and Literature for 24 years without even having heard of Krashen. That’s some bullshit. Then eleven years now of TPRS/CI – not always fun because, except for Susan Gross and Diana Noonan, the training has been pretty much non-existent. Thank God for those two. And Bryce Hedstrom.
Now I simply love it. I guess my career has been a reversal of what is usually the case. Don’t we usually start out loving it and then at the end we hate it? At least it’s been the other way around.
I’ll keep teaching, just not full time. Why stop now? I am going to focus on the video piece and on helping train younger DPS teachers with Diana as much as I can. The first video will be coming out probably in late June right here. It is going to be good, I think. I’m gonna make it work. We’d be fools not to, right?
Just some thoughts in the middle of the night. Thanks for being there – for joining our little group. It’s gonna be a good few years coming up. I can tell.
 A particular thank you to whatever that mysterious loving force is that has helped me get my tired ass out of bed all these years, sometimes even shaving and driving the car in for me and teaching my first few classes for me on certain days. 
Four South Carolina and three Colorado full time schools. A lot of craziness. Done now. Yea!