Wednesday and Thursday inservices were fun and much less overwhelming. I learned about conflict management and how much work it is to set up a classroom for the beginning of the year! We also had a short leadership seminar where the speaker gave the best definition of leadership I've ever heard: a leader is someone who sees what should happen and does something to accomplish that vision.

Wednesday night I went to a college-aged Bible study. It was pretty neat -- very diverse "kids", excellent discussion. I missed reformedness a little, though -- our discussion seemed to matter very little as soon as we had stood up from our seats. "Christian" life and "real" life seemed fairly well separated. But of course God doesn't let us live that way for long, and some of the people there were really struggling to follow Him in everything and it was very fun to get to know them a little tiny bit. I'll try to go back this Wednesday but I can't stay until 10:30 this time! That's too late for me, old lady as I am. ;-)

Friday I had nothing to do, so I went to observe at Leslie's public middle school. That was fascinating -- I found out that I love middle schoolers! They were the perfect age -- young enough that they still respected/listened to me, old enough to have their own opinions and to be starting the growing-up process that I love so much. I was tutoring a couple of kids on their time management projects. They had to keep a log of everything they did for a day, then write a paragraph about one place they had wasted time. Those kids had no clue what wasted time was! So I asked them what their goals in life were, what they most wanted to do each day. "Build muscle," said one boy. "Okay, then," I said -- "any time yesterday that you did not spend building muscle was wasted time for you." That sounded a little silly to both of us so he amended his life goals to include education. Because, as I told him, if he reached the age of 18 with a great set of muscles but nothing else, what on earth was he going to do with his life? Hopefully I love teaching little kids as much as I enjoyed the middle schoolers.

This weekend I discovered a neat 9-mile bike trail through a forest preserve just outside of town. It's only 2 miles to get there, too. I had a wonderful time biking around, seeing goldenrod for the first time in many years, and looking at the lovely color combinations God makes with different flowers and in the sky. And I pinched my finger in the outhouse door. Yay for being clumsy! It makes life more interesting -- I biked half the way home with my hand held up to try and avoid throbbing and swelling. No, I am not a wimp; it was a very bad pinch. At least, from my perspective it was. ;-D

I get to meet my kids on Tuesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!