Well this is embarrassing

I just checked.  It has been over  almost  a year since I last posted something to this site.  I am so embarrassed.

Much has happened since that last post.

• I have moved to a new state. It has snow. Lots of it.
• I “retired” from my previous job.  They offered buyouts.  I said yes.  No regrets, although saying goodbye to a place where I worked for 18 years had its challenges.
• I now live with my 94 year old mother and my sister and her dog, but my life now mostly revolves around my 94 year old mom.
• My husband and best friend are 900 miles away (each in different directions).  This is not fun but I am grateful for my unlimited data plan.
• I have started a new job.  I am a teacher vs a teacher and administrator/ tech wrangler in higher ed.
• I do not miss the administratrivia one single bit. Nor the technology that was wrangled.
• I love being a teacher.
• I am teaching at the same place from which I graduated college.  In the same department in which I majored.  This is a source of my constant confusion (Which decade is this?)  When the coffee shop on campus plays “classic rock” music I am completely and totally lost.
• I have volunteered to be a mentor for a fellow language professional who works elsewhere in the country through the ACTFL mentoring program.  At first as was the world’s worst mentor on the face of the planet…. I didn’t check in, I hated the conference calls (50 people on the same call? My new definition of hell), I got overwhelmed by stuff in my own life (I felt like I was the one who needed a mentor!). I was filled to the brim with self doubt and the ever familiar  imposter syndrome (who the heck do you think you are pretending to be someone’s mentor???)  But now? We talk every week and while I cant speak for her I have found these meetups encouraging, supportive, and fun.  It’s really great to feel like you are not alone out there.
• I was selected to be join the Inaugural Teaching Center Faculty Fellows at the new college where I work. It comes with a stipend and money to put towards teaching resources.  So far we haven’t done any heavy lifting but apparently my project is going to be thinking about ways to Unlearn Spanish.  Yeah…that sounds about right….
• I got to spend a few days in NYC in January with my colleagues from Radio Ambulante  to talk about teaching and supporting teachers who use the podcast for teaching.  Every time I get to spend time with them I just pinch myself. What an amazing group they are and how lucky I am to be a part of that team.
• I still love being a teacher (in case you were wondering if that would change in the last 20 or so lines ago), although I realize every day how hard it is to teach and how much energy it saps from me at the end of the day.  As I write I am in my pajamas.  It is 5:30 p.m.
• I found a pool (the local Y).  I continue to listen to podcasts while swimming and cherish my underwater solitude and personalized storytelling (I tell myself that they are talking just to meeeeee)
• Higher ed is a very, very strange place.
• My sister has learned how to brew beer. This is a VERY good thing.
• I have acquired a deep and abiding love for the TV show The Incredible Dr Pol (did I mention I live with a 94 year old?  That is code for  the TV is always on)
• I learned how to snow-shoe and how to cross country ski this winter.  When in Rome….
• I have taken skating lessons.  My knees are not pleased with me but I plan to keep practicing.
• This post is being written as part of the Faculty Diversity 14 day writing challenge.  I have signed up to write for 30 minutes every day, with the hope of producing one blog post a week.  So, with their prompts and an ounce of hope…. I should be back and blogging regularly.  Fingers crossed!