Have the room looking like a classroom and ready to go even if my files are stacked on a table in the corner. The teacher I share a room with is at about the same point. Received the feedback I had hoped for from a returning student who popped in. He like the way the desks faced in. Looked as though we could have students working together. I blinked twice and thought that this just may be the ticket upward.

Meanwhile, the morale on the staff is high. A committee prepared a barbeque lunch for us and I received a nice round of "Happy Birthday" in honor of #56 yesterday. I believe that the word is out that no one has the degree of preparation that one would like, but with the extensive change sweeping the school, we will do the best we all can under the circumstances. I see us having a common direction for a change and an energy around the work we are doing.

In fact, I was so energetic that when I went to the yoga class at Crossroads downtown after teaching my class (4-5:00), hitting the store for groceries, and arguing politics with my brother, I was wired tight. The abs class was seven minutes over, and so I pretended to open the door and tell them to vacate. Well, out of the seventeen students who were waiting outside the door, one woman did just that. It was a hoot. Our instructor took the time to calm us all down in an excellent demonstration of "pitta calming" that did the trick.

The all comes about because I love teaching so. This year has great promise and an absence of hard feeling that characterized the past few years. I am ready to jump in with a full slate of students tomorrow morning.