Whenever I feel no one likes me as a teacher....

then the Lord quickly gives me more than enough evidence to the contrary. When your bosses are many--principal, asst. principals, specialists, every parent, and every child...all it takes is one crazy, bully of a parent or administrator to make me feel despondent.

One year it was my principal. She was on my case constantly. I felt like I wanted to quit in the middle of the year. I was going to quit in the middle of the day one day, and on the way to my principal's office, I walked by my mail box. There was a wooden United States puzzle and a large US map on  a blanket sticking out. The accompanying note from a parent told me how much of a difference I had made in her son's life (he was in middle school then) and she wanted me to have those maps because she knew I would use them. How timely! I took them to my room and cried. I did not resign.

Sometimes, it has been science tools and rocks left from parents of former students. I received a $56 rock collection from a parent of a former student. I met a high school junior who said I am a legend in high school. They talk about me all the time, he said. Last year,  senior came by to take his picture with me...his favorite teacher. Sometimes, it is just that a parent talks about me on Facebook, recalling how much their child liked me. You would think that I shouldn't need that, but with all the negativity of my job, I do.

A recent incident was from parents who were angry about their son being bullied all year. Well, he wasn't bullied at all. In fact, his behavior was so bad that he was the one that hurt others, but the parents wouldn't believe that at all and kept threatening and pointing fingers at me and my partner...cussing us out. After 2 hours of that, I was shaking. The weekend was ruined. I, again felt down. Then, the next week there was a faculty meeting reviewing a student session where a student was randomly selected from every class and questioned about their learning. This was recorded and some of the best answers were read aloud at the meeting. Several of the students mentioned my name with the good things they remembered...but the one that meant the most was the 4th grade student that went on and on about how I made learning exciting because I taught students things that weren't for a test; I taught them extra things that they wanted to know or would help them in their future. If that is all anyone said about me as a teacher, that is what I have always wanted to do in my classes. Once again, I thanked Heavenly Father for the timing and that I have had that impact on His children.

One of the oddest things I've done...

When I blow my nose, I wipe the inside of each nostril before I put the Kleenex up.
When I chew gum at church, I put the gum inside a Kleenex before I play the organ.

Well, I was chewing gum...and put it in part of a Kleenex. Then I blew my nose on the other side and apparently the inside nostril wipe was too close to the gum because there was a stretch of gum stringing from my nostril. This was horrible because the bishopric was giving announcements and I knew I had to play the organ soon. I turned my head away from the congregation's view and began picking the inside of my left nostril because the nose hair had gum sticking to it. Little stretchy strands of gum stretched out with each pick. I was panicking, but I thought I had it all out before I had to play the opening hymn. After the sacrament, I went down to sit with dad and imagine his look when I asked him if I had gum in my left nostril and I lifted it up to him. He stared at me with this quizzical look after he answered, 'no', and realized what he had answered. I then told him what had happened and he tried hard not to laugh out loud in our meeting.

proto makerspace.com

Find the closest one, Cameron and Will. You will want to use this place for the products you invent. They consult, teach, and let you use their tools to make a prototype of anything. They also consult on the cheapest, easiest ways to mass produce the products. They hold classes on how to use the tools. Linda would probably love to go to them, but so would Will. They don't let you handle the equipment till you have proven you know and can safely use it.