An Attempt to Celebrate

This week is my last week of school. When I was a child, I never imagined that the teachers count down the days until the end of school even more so than the students do. I haven't written much about my job on this blog so far for a number of reasons... but here is my attempt to celebrate.

In an email I wrote to a friend, I explained to her that while I'm plenty excited for school to be over, I wish I were feeling more accomplishment for getting through the months I have. I began my job in February and walked into directing a preschool program that had not had a director since September. I'm still patching up snafus left to me when I arrived, and I probably will continue to patch things until next March (a full year after I began the job).

I'm used to grad school, where I put my nose to the grindstone and crank out those last papers and they really demonstrate the knowledge and skill I've gained over the course of a semester. Now, I'm still on a school schedule, but I don't feel that same accomplishment or final demonstration of what I've learned. I feel like I'm just getting through the next five days to just get through them without much to be proud of in finishing the year. There is so much I want to do for next year, but this year I can only see what I haven't done, what was left undone in the preschool this year. I only see the battles I've avoided (because starting in February, I didn''t fight all the battles, I was very selective). I think a lot of it is because I don't have anything to compare the year to... I don't know what the preschool was like before I got there.

Several parents and colleagues have expressed to me the improvement they've noticed since I've arrived, how glad they are to have me... but I just don't feel it. I think this week I will pray this week that God would give me SOME sense of accomplishment in finishing this year. There has to be a reason to celebrate even though there is much improvement ahead.