"Days go by so easily that sometimes we forget..."

The reference is "Things I Prayed for" by Eli, by the way.

This is the Monday of the Ninth week of my teaching career. Nine weeks. What have I learned from all this? Well, here's some of it:
--You can spend hours and hours making lesson plans, just to have the principal call an assembly during your test time.
--You can't get upset when you don't make as much progress as you intended to.
--A moment's outburst can come back to haunt you again and again.
--Like it or not, you have superiors, whose word is law, usually.
--More than likely, you won't like their personality, or they won't like yours, or both.
--Whether you like your boss or not is irrelevant, and does not affect your required job performance.
--Putting things off won't make them go away.
--Neither will complaining about them.
--Neither will posting about them.
--You have responsibilities to people, and when you don't fulfill them, YOU are the problem.
--A contract is a contract. It's your word and your bond. End of story.
--Letting things pile up makes life harder, not easier.
--Eventually, all those piled up things have to be taken care of. And usually, that's the time when you get sick.
--If you don't give yourself some downtime, you become neurotic and insecure.
--If you give yourself too much downtime, you become stressed and behind in your work.
--Give yourself a goal to work toward, and a reward to await you on the other side of your mountain.
--If possible, make the reward a weekend visit from your amazing pseudo-fiancee.
--Carry on, endure all hardship with patience, because you must.
--You are never alone. Even when you're alone.

This is the short list. It's been in many ways the toughest nine weeks of my late-adolescent/early-adult life. But I have gotten through, thanks to God and family and my beloved one. One term down, three to go. Even so, come sweet summer...