Writing in Pencil.

It's Sunday, and school starts for the teachers tomorrow.  (Never mind that we've been there, in clumps of three or four, or ten or twenty, pretty much all summer -- except for when the floors were being waxed and caution tape forced a real vacation...)  A week from tomorrow will be August 31st.

AKA, Day 365.

Yes, in eight days, I will have blogged every single day for an entire year.  Although I had two guest bloggers in that time, I wrote (and rewrote) introductions for both of them, so I still contributed.  (Mr. Drescher wrote about his lifetime of learning, and Cathy Cuff Coffman shared reminisces of her gifted program in the 70s.)  Both offered perspectives that I could not.  Certainly, we have similar experiences, or are able to relate to some of what each of them shared, which is what makes the whole idea of social media and its ability to connect the seemingly unconnectedness in all of us to elicit nods, tears, laughter, and other emotions.

A week from now I plan to tell you about how much this experience has taught me, and how it has changed my life.  But today, I find myself wondering whether there even IS such a thing as life after blogging, and "How Much is Too Much?"  Various entries in this blog have been read by someone more than 36,000 times over its life.  This boggles my mind, so I push that number, and its real, or imaginary, potential significance, to the back of my head, focusing, instead, on the future.

Because tomorrow is Day #1 (or #3 for those of us who took advantage of summer Schoology training in August), of 189 for the 2014-15 school year.  Right now, the book is blank, offering limitless possibilities.

Yes, I'm still feeling the zen.  And I'm writing in pencil.

Because ink makes things permanent, limiting possibilities, and causing mind-boggling frustration when the schedules change.  And just like those two days in the last year, where I relied on a little help from my friends, I know that teaching is a shared experience, that every day is a new day, and that my colleague-friends are right there with me, with infinite laughter and support.  And pencils.  Many, many pencils.