My 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Tate, made us write a whole list of New Year's Resolutions when we came back from our 2 week break. Mrs. Tate was also my teacher in 3rd grade and she said she remembered what my previous resolutions were. (I can't believe I fell for that!) She told me she expected something different from me as I was now older and wiser. (ha!) I hated this assignment! It was torture for a 10 year old to come up with things I could resolve to do (or not do) in the coming year.
Fast forward about 13 years...I was a recent college graduate and I was taking a class to complete my teaching credential. I had a professor who was sort of an old hippy type (and ironically, her name was Dr. Weed, I'm NOT joking). She asked us to think back to an assignment we had as a child that we didn't like and re-do it now with the mindset of a teacher. Her whole class was about getting "in touch" with your inner child, and it was sort of funny at times, but I ended up learning a lot from her. Anyway...my idea was to take Mrs. Tate's resolution assignment and make it more to my liking. So my new lesson plan was to ask the students to write about the most important thing that happened in their life during the last year. Of course Dr. Weed later asked me if I had issues with making commitments...or a fear of the future...or if I had negative associations with the month of January. :)
To get to my point, I was thinking this last week about the most important thing that happened to me in 2009. Turning 4o would have to be it. 40 can be kind of a scary number, but honestly, I haven't been bothered by it. (I guess Dr. Weed was wrong about my fear of the future). To celebrate my 40th birthday, I had the opportunity to travel with my family to Ireland, something I had wanted to do for most of my life. Overall, 2009 was a great year! I look forward to 2010, but making resolutions has never been one of my things...
Happy New Year!
Friday, January 01, 2010
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3 comments:
I'm so glad to read this post of yours. I too don't like making resolutions. I used to make them every year because I thought I was supposed to and ended up failing at most of them. I quit making them because I was tired of feeling like a failure. You are such a productive and together person, it's nice to know you feel this way too. Now I don't have to feel so guilty for not coming up with resolutions and being a slacker. I like the idea of thinking about the previous year. I'll do that instead. Thanks.
I remember you complaining about that assignment. Are you sure you it was because you weren't fond of the assignment or was it Mrs. Tate? I really think you found it not to be a real learning process. You had already started on thinking that you need to do things that have meaning.
Mrs, Tate,
She's always late,
She thinks she's great,
But she ain't,
She's Mrs. Tate.
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