While I visit the Daily Kos almost every day, I don't do diaries very often. In fact, this is only my third in four years. That said, Something special happened last week that I want to share. Please join me below the fold.
I teach at a middle school. It is the best job I've ever had. Somehow I'm able to make connections with the weird little people we know as middle schoolers, even though they scare a lot of other adults. Maybe it's because I'm still a thirteen year old inside. Recently, I had one of of the best moments of my teaching career.
I had a student in class this semester whose father was deployed to Iraq. Having had a couple of close family members of my own who were deployed, I was able make a special connection with this girl. I know how scary it is to have someone close to you in a war zone. Almost every day the girl would come up to me and tell me how things were going. If she had heard from her dad, she was happy and bounced around the room. If she hadn't heard anything in a while, she was worried and depressed.
The best experience I had this semester was the moment the girl's father, home on leave, surprised her in my classroom. She had no idea he was coming home. He brought her flowers and laid them next to her laptop as she was working on a project. She turned, looked up, yelled daddy, and threw herself into his arms. She held on to him for the next fifteen minutes.
Merry Christmas everyone