I continue to fail. We're four full weeks into the school year, and the best weigh-in I've had yet is 232. I have not ridden my bike or walked to school once, despite living less than a mile away. I don't feel like I'm eating that much (I generally have a Healthy Choice meal of 350 calories or less for lunch, and maybe an apple and a handful of nuts or a granola bar as a snack at work; I only have instant cappuccino for breakfast, and I have nothing too impressive or unusual for dinner). I guess I'm still taking in more calories than I should, but it doesn't seem like it. Guess I need to scale back.

And I am going to force myself, starting on Monday, to walk or ride my bike at least a few days a week. Some days I may have something after school (I work with the newspaper kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays), or I may have to run to the store or the ATM, and that tends to be why I have been driving. I need to get stuff like that done on weekends so I have my afternoons open.

Here goes nothing...well, I guess nothing is what I've already been doing, so hopefully here goes something...

I must admit to being somewhat disillusioned with my job right now. While I am really glad to be back in the classroom full time, I can't help but long for the "good old days" at my old school. I was pretty spoiled and sheltered by the all-female, generally upper-middle-class students and their higher achievement abilities. I just don't know that I'm cut out for public school. The kids are much less inclined to put much effort into anything; they'd rather do the minimum available. While my previous students clamored for extra credit assignments, these kids are hardly interested in completing the assignments they are required to do. I've got several students who occasionally miss class to meet with probation officers, I've got one who is a runaway and hasn't been to school since the fourth day of the school year, and I've got one who is in some program that entails his missing my class (I'm guessing it is drug or behavior-related, but I don't know for sure). I would have expected the counseling center to have given the teachers some kind of update or information on these students, so we are aware of any issues that might affect our classes, but we receive nothing. I'm just used to the higher level of communication I seemed to receive from the administration and counselors at my old school. While these kids are nice, I just don't feel like I'm forming the kind of bonds with them that I did with my former students.

I don't know; maybe I'm just being silly. Maybe this is what school is supposed to be like, and my old school was an anomaly. But it was an anomaly that made me comfortable. Maybe that comfort will come with time.

Or maybe I need a day off.