The Beginning

As of this week, according to my contract, I am officially a Latin teacher. I have a box labelled with my name in the teacher workroom and everything. Today I picked up my record book and required faculty reading. While I can't remember why I wanted to learn Latin in the first place, I do remember the inspiration I received from a tutor in high school. Since then, my mantra has been "I want to teach the classics."

Of course, the picture I had painted of the future looked quite different than the one I'm living in now. I was moving out of state, going to grad school, and then teaching at the collegiate level. I was not teaching students under the age of 18 and living only 40 miles away from where I lived in high school. This was where I'm fairly certain God enjoyed a hearty laugh. For while I took the GRE, wrote life statements, and filled out applications, I became exhausted with it all. Looking back I recognize that the actions and plans themselves weren't as tiring as the image I was trying to project. As the the goal of teaching was over-shadowed by the image of the perfect person I annoyingly tried cultivated, my energy drained away. So finally the grad school letters were filed away for "later" and I spent the last few months of college simply being whoever it was I was put here to be. I also think I became less irritating.

Today I believe this little school in the TX hill country is a result of both personal foolishness and divine intervention and mercy. For while I royally messed up one plan through pride, another beautiful one was in the works. And while I spend the upcoming year answering to "Miss Spain", sharing a classroom with the math teacher, and living vicariously through friends taking the grad school route, I count each day as a gift of grace.