exerpt from an email to Christen

The easiest question is Are you cold? and the answer is yes! My trailer is cold and my classroom is cold, but I'm getting used to it all. The warmest part of my day is when the alarm goes off in the morning and I'm all bundled up in bed with all the heat I've generated throughout the night. :-P

As for my spirits, they're up, not flying high, but alright. I've been heading down to Oxford on weekends to socialize with the first-year Teacher Corps now that I don't have class. It provides much-needed unwinding. So in that aspect, this semester is going even better than the fall. But in other ways, I'm lonlier than before, namely that I feel even more disconnected from my community, especially after the blog incident. It doesn't help that I have the only classroom in the basement at school. And I know I'm not sticking around after this school year. I have a great relationship with my students, just a lack of relationships with other teachers. They're supportive as coworkers, but it's my kids that show they care about me, you know, not the other teachers. Which should be enough, I know, and if I had to pick between the two, I'd pick my students. But still, it all makes me feel like I'm as "foreign" as they thought when I first came here. Kids can love anybody, which is beautiful. Maybe this is partially brought on by me, because I'm doing my own thing, which just happens not to coincide with the social life of other adults in the community. I don't feel vested here, and it bothers me.

I've dug in, from here on out, until state tests (April 25), and I've been quite disciplined about the school stuff (also a bit stressed, which could account for the spirits). On Sunday, I desperately wanted a nap and crawled into my sleeping bag on the floor for the best nap in a long time. I loved it so much that I slept in my sleeping bag that night and the next. I know, it's nutty, but I can tell what I miss -- badly. I checked the trail journals tonight, and folks have already begun their northbound AT thru-hike. I've got mine roughly - very roughly - sketched out, and I'm looking into dehydrating food, stoves, and shelters. It's always a bad idea to think about the hike on a school night, because I get not much else done.