The new school year has just begun. So far, it looks like it's going to be great: two different classes to prepare, tons of technology, and, most importantly, incredibly supportive coworkers. I'm at a new school and I can recreate my identity as a teacher; well, a bit.

Although the year is just beginning, the feeling of swimming or sinking is very strong. Last year, each weekend went up and down: I felt like I could enjoy life when there was nothing to plan, but when the need to plan my classes hit, I felt like I was going to sink. Each weekend I planned my classes so I could enjoy a few days, but then the sinking feeling of having to plan more was always a few days away. As my new principal put it, there's always going to be more work, so you need to take time to enjoy life. She's completely right. While I did spend one day this weekend planning, I'm hoping to spend less time working during my weekends and more time enjoying life.

Everyone says that the first year teaching is incredibly difficult--some say the first three years. I know that last year was really difficult for me, 60+ hours a week and feeling stress so much that I thought it would never go away. Yes, I had to plan 6 different classes a day and write lesson plans, so I was justified in my stress, but I would have preferred to not have been in that situation to begin with.

While I was reflecting on last year, I realized a few things. One, that I learned a lot about teaching, interacting with coworkers, and being in "the real world." I think I learned more last year about the work place than most people learn in a few years! Am I glad that I learned so much so quickly? Normally my answer would be "yes," but under that circumstance, no. Not only would I have wanted more time to learn all that, I realized that I would have preferred reading about it in a book instead so I wouldn't have had to make the mistakes in the first place.

That was my biggest realization: my dependency on books. My entire life, my philosophy has been that I should not make mistakes that I can prevent by learning about them from reading. I can get experiences through characters or from nonfiction. Why should I suffer the consequences when people, real or imaginary, have already done it for me? Do I really need to mark up my own tabula rasa? I'm still of this belief, but others emphasize the importance of learning the feeling and emotion behind making mistakes and learning things the hard way. Perhaps so; I definitely empathize more with the characters I read about. Still, an imaginary character's mistakes aren't so dire as a real person's.

Books are my safety blanket. When I'm overwhelmed with life and just want to forget everything, picking up a book has always been my cure, my relaxation. I want to mark up my tabula rasa with experiences from books and reality. Is that so wrong?