What an emotional roller coaster...

Today has been such an incredibly emotional day, and such a roller coaster. I cannot handle another day like this. I really don't want to talk about all of it, as a lot of it is very personal, but I will share some of what I can.

This morning, I had to quickly turn my first couple of classes over to other teachers to cover... because ABC News was there to interview me and one of my students, because I nominated him for an award, and he won. He totally deserves this award, and the time of it is great too. I went to participate in the taping, watching their class, our school's human rights organization, plan for an upcoming fundraiser to raise money for victims of the flood in Pakistan. Some of the victims are actually friends of two of my students, and they don't even know if all of their friends over there are okay, so it was actually kind of hard for me to hear about that, yet it is so inspiring at the same time. These kids are the most amazing kids. They bring so much joy to my heart, in that they see the little that they have compared to other Americans as truly wealthy in comparison to the rest of the world, and they want to share the wealth to help people in need. They are some pretty special kids. The student who won the award will get a $1000 scholarship for his college education. Considering that he will likely end up at a state school, that money will go far, especially when stacked with other similar scholarships that I believe he will end up getting, and a kid who I never would have pegged as college-bound 2 years ago will probably graduate college and propose some genius idea to create world peace or something like that. It was the kind of "teacher high" that keeps me going in the tough parts of this job....

Like casting a show. Creating the cast list of A Christmas Carol this week has been hard on me. I feel so bad for the girls who I will be letting down by casting them in roles smaller than they imagined, and frustrated at the fact that there  were not enough boys auditioning this time to even really fill all the roles, so I am just praying that the ways I filled them end up working okay.

Or the even tougher part.... hearing about a past student whom I truly care deeply about and the fact that he has really gone down the wrong path. Out of privacy, I will not go into detail, but I will just say that my heart really, really hurts today. I cried a lot. This student has a very special place in my heart, and this was news that I had hoped never ever to hear. All I can do now is pray. I truly believe that The Lord is the Good Shepherd, who will go after the one who is lost, and I can only find solace in that right now.

The sadness in my heart over this one student really was a much needed reminder, because these tears were so much more justified than the the 5 minutes of tears I cried when I saw Vinny's haircut disaster today. What started out as a "buzz cut" ended up as a "bald as a cue ball" style that sort of broke my heart. My wonderful husband shaved off his wonderful amber curls in moral support (well, that's what he says... I think he was just sick of wearing a swim camp every day at practice), so now I have two bald boys. Now it seems really ridiculous that I cried so much about something so stupid, but at the time, I truly couldn't help myself.

I am sick of being hormonal and emotional. But I am also not ready for this baby...

Oh boy.