One Foot in Front of the Other

The title of this entry is pretty obvious and typical, but it's also very fitting.

Last summer, I had a complete physical. Let's just say my lazy lifestyle wasn't doing the best it could for my body.

I decided this needed to change. I cut out fast food, started eating more fruit, but the biggest thing was I started working out. The elliptical and I became close friends.

The big issue I had to get over was my asthma. I have exercise-induced asthma (humidity, cold, and me being congested can trigger it, too). It was pretty bad in high school, but in college it got a little better thanks to me hoofing it all over Mizzou's campus.

I'm not going to deny that I wasn't scared when I stepped on that elliptical. The thought of the screaming lungs, the inability to catch my breath, and shaky hands didn't exactly make me want to jump into this guns a blazin'.

I've been good though. I even made the jump to full out running on the treadmill.

Best part: the asthma has rarely been an issue.

Yes, I still have bad days. But the good part is that I can tell when I'm starting to push myself too hard. I know my symptoms, and I know when to slow down and when to just say "It's time to stop."

The important thing is that when those days happen, it doesn't make me not go back. I show up the next day, and push myself just as hard.

I'm not super fast yet, and I'm not doing any long distances. But, considering a year ago running a quarter mile would have made me keel over and now I can do three half-miles in a 30-minute period, I'd say I'm slowly slaying the beast.

Success

It isn't hard to see evidence of teacher's successes being measured by tests in today's world. And I won't go into my thoughts and opinions on that matter. But, I think if you have any common sense, it is easy to figure out that those percentages aren't really what measures your success.

We have 20 minutes of daily silent reading time in our school, and my students have it for my class once a week. Yes, there is the typical grumbling you'd expect (they're teenagers for cripe's sake that's what they excel at). For the most part, though, my students have been pretty good at staying on task and digging into their free choice books (one class has almost read 250 books since the start of the year).

Yesterday, I told one girl I'd miss her next year as she recommended another seven books for me to read. She immediately told me that she was going to miss me more because I was the only one who gave her recommendations and good ones at that. A few minutes later, she told me I had to give her some type of contact information for the summer because there was no way that she'd make it through the summer without my input on books.

Today, different class, different student. Same conversation.

Back to the first student today: Mrs. Knipper, I read in previous years, but nothing like this. But, because of YOU, I really, really like it now.

Now, that's really some success.