Thank you to everyone who made such encouraging, sweet comments on the blog. I've felt like I have an entourage of angels whispering kind words on this journey, and--perhaps even as a result--I experienced some of my first satisfying moments in front of a class today.

I re-taught one of the lessons that flopped last week--only today, the lesson went well. (Of course, I still experienced some bumps in the classroom management department--every time the noise level gets to a certain point, I find myself physically crumpling in front of the class; at these moments, my amazing mentor teacher steps in. It never ceases to amaze me how a word from her can produce absolute silence from even large groups of rowdy adolescents.) But after the students became quiet and the learning-teaching-learning process began, I became surprisingly aware of the change in my own interior state. For the first time, I did not ardently wish that I possessed Harry Potter's invisibility cloak so that I could discretely remove myself from shame; instead, I found myself actually enjoying (imagine!) teaching. Welcome sensation though it was, I was nonetheless shocked to discover that it is possible to feel joy in front of a classroom. Who would have thought.

I think it had something to do with the group of students. As we talked about "Young Goodman Brown," they seemed to experience no difficulty grasping the concept that this story functions best on an abstract level. In fact, they were incredible at analyzing and articulating the symbolic meaning of the story's literal action. Also, a bunch of the students seemed to have a pretty good handle on the Bible, and my guess is that they were probably thrilled at the opportunity to use such hard-earned knowledge to help them in school. As we attempted to extrapolate a working definition of evil from this story, some of the kids actually seemed enthralled by the intellectual task at hand. I was enthralled by their enthusiasm. By the time I left school, I was so happy that I actually felt kind of like I was floating. Really. I looked down to check.

So I decided to celebrate by taking myself to a really great Indian buffet. (I consoled myself after my most recent teacherly failure in the same manner.) It was delicious, and my post-buffet self now solidly obeys the law of gravity. I don't even need to check.