Debussy + Puzzles = Sanity

Yeah, so I haven't blogged in a while. Since my last entry, I've become a real teacher in the real world with real students--i.e. reality came crashing down around my head. True colors abound. For a moment there I lost my purpose, my passion, my burning desire to do this every day for the next...166 days. But all that's back now. I got a puzzle. That's my new thing--puzzles. I bought a couple for the kids and they loved the 100-piece, but the 500-piece was more than daunting for even my puzzle-savviest students. I decided to lay the puzzle out and start it myself to give them a head start and maybe a bit more confidence. In the process, I realized how much I love puzzles. It's not news really, just a revival of a childhood hobby. I started after school on Wednesday. I actually stayed at school just to work on the puzzle. Thursday morning I informed the kids that they could no longer go to the puzzle table whenever they wanted. I told them that I am now invested in the puzzle and they can only work on it with permission. (Believe it or not, that totally worked.) That afternoon, I set a time limit for myself--which I passed by like half an hour--to stay and work on the puzzle. Friday was one of those days from hell and all I could think of was stopping to get a puzzle on the way home. I considered bringing the 500-piece from school, but I realized how important it is for me to be able to turn on Debussy at the end of a long day and sit down to the ocean blues of my jigsaw puzzle. I need that unwind time because I know that when I get home after my God-knows-how-long commute, I have to get straight to work to get to bed at a decent hour. So after school, I stick around a while and work on my puzzle.