Out of the woods

I waited patiently.

Sitting outside his office, in the comfortable chairs.

People passed by, they stared.

I held on tightly to my notebook and pen.

"Did you get in trouble again ms. Acosta?" One lady asked.

"Yes, I got kicked out of class for disrupting the teacher, and got three referrals," I tell her.

And we both laugh. Of course, I wasn't in trouble, I was waiting to visit with my boss for my annual appraisal meeting. 

As a kid, I only got called to the principals office, for talking back to my photography teacher on the sidelines of a football field before Friday night lights. Long story, maybe some day I will tell it.

The way the appraisal works is, we meet, we talk and he tells me he will make a surprise visit to my class between certain days. For me, it's next week.

I am not going to lie. I am nervous. He makes me nervous. He's a very handsome man I admit, but he's my boss. He's making sure my performance as a teacher is up to standards. Am I worthy to continue to be a teacher? Am I teaching the right content? Are students understanding me or are they lost?

When I was the editor, the only performance review I got came at the end of every week. Did we meet our sales quota? Did we sell enough ads? What size? How many color ads? Did we miss our goal? Did we stay within the 60/40 percent of sales vs news content in the paper? What do we need to do next week to continue making money and keep the paper going?

Here, I am being judged by what I teach. Can I keep the attention of a few hundred teenagers and make them understand the subject?

After we spoke about my appraisal, we spoke about other things. I do enjoy talking to him. He's very down to earth and he's easy to talk to. Sometimes I see him and wonder, was I ever as good of a boss as him? He manages an entire school, filled with hundreds of employees. I only managed a weekly, no more than four employees with a $500,000 budget annually. Not the same.

I hope I do well and I don't fall on my face and make an ass of myself. I hope I don't forget what I am going to say and stumble and sound like an idiot. Dear lord, please don't make me fall. I want to continue teaching. If it's not meant to be for me to stay and tech at this grade level, please help me so that I can teach another grade level.

Today I went to check my mailbox and my secret bulldog appeared! He/she got me this:

Holy monkey, $25 gift card!!

Tomorrow we are supposed to get ice and rain and cold and hopefully some snow. Yay!