On Friday, June 29th, at 2:59am, my fiance and I had a beautiful, healthy baby girl, weighing in at eight pounds and seven ounces, measuring twenty inches long.  Mommy and baby are doing great.

She is the most gorgeous baby I’ve ever seen (though I may be slightly biased).  I am so excited to be a father.

Here’s to being here to witness the rest of beautiful Bryn Autumn’s life.

Today is the first day that I don’t need to go in to school.  Summer hasn’t quite sunken in yet; it always takes me a few days to get into the groove.

I attended graduation last Thursday, and watching those kids stride across the stage every year, staring toward their nebulous futures, I get to thinking about many things.  One is always how much I love my job.  I am privileged enough to be able to work with some of the finest students in the world on a daily basis (except during summer: yet another perk to this profession).  I get to be a part of their lives for a brief moment, and I hope that I am a positive influence.  And, in turn, they are a part of my life for a brief moment.  They move on, and I stay in the same place, waving at them as they head off in a hundred different directions.

And in the fall, I have another one hundred and thirty kids who will spend the next ten months with me.  It is a challenge–that is for sure.  Yet it is also the most rewarding experience.  Not to disparage other subject-area teachers, but being an English teacher is unlike any other job: I am able to get a glimpse into how these people work, what they love, what they hate, what they want from life; I am able to watch them create, using words that come from their heads, worlds on the paper.

I do not measure a year from January to December.  My year is from September to June.  Summer is lovely–my favorite season–but there is a little part of my heart that looks forward to the fall, to the start of a new year with fresh faces and worlds to be created.