As I am for most things in my life, I’m late to this blogging challenge. As a recovering perfectionist this bothers me. But it doesn’t bother me enough to NOT take the challenge. Cheers to personal growth!

Prompt today: What’s in your desk drawer and what can you infer from its content?

First reaction: UG–my desk drawer is perfectly boring. Why did I choose to enter on day 8?

Second thought: Ok, ok, the point is to just write, isn’t that what you tell your students every day? …Fine.

So my desk at home (where I am writing this) looks like this.

If you couldn’t predict from the “recovering perfectionist” comment, I LOVE to be organized. While others are vegging out on the latest Housewives episode to avoid whatever task they can’t imagine tackling, I’m in the back room organizing things. I organize my digital files and folders, I organize my email Inbox, I organize my husband’s sock drawer. The desperation of a type A procrastinator knows no bounds.

This drawer also reveals that I love my tech. In fact, I must have had a supernatural premonition about this prompt when I posted the picture below to Twitter earlier this summer.

l love having a variety of tools and devices ready for me to tackle a new task, make a new connection, or let my creativity flow through my finger tips.

I also love to avoid my own irritation. My husbands, my sisters, and my closest girlfriends can tell you that I am slow to anger but fire-cracker fast to irritation. #workingonit

So being prepared for anything is high on the list. Look at that trying-to-be-camoflauged black box in the bottom right corner. That beauty is a little device from Verizon that uses my phone’s data to provide me with Wi-Fi.

Because…

I use the Internet to…

• Connect with friends
• Meet new friends
• Find resources to improve my instruction
• Keep up with current events
• Watch videos that make me cry.
• Watch videos of cats.
• Watch ALL of my TV shows.
• Create ALL of my lesson plans.
• Communicate with…everyone. Including my students
• Find recipes.
• Find out how to get that pen mark out of my 4th-grade-teacher-husband’s khakis (still searching if you want to help)

Ok, for the sake of not completely overdoing the bullets (too late, I know!), I use the Internet for nearly everything that makes me happy in life. So, I like to be prepared.

Perhaps that’s why my desk drawer contains an insane amount of post-it notes. I couldn’t imagine my life without these partially-sticky, brightly-colored little joys. I think my brain would implode from the weight of all those extra thoughts that couldn’t be removed, recorded on a small note, and then stuck some place for future reference and immediate disposal. Post-it, my brain thanks you. Gratitude is a practice, folks.

At the end of this post, what have I learned about being a reflective teacher? Hmm…uh…honestly I don’t know. But it DID get me writing after a LONG hiatus, and it was completely fun. And isn’t that what I stay up late at nights thinking about for my students–“How do I convince them that writing can actually be fun? What can I change to open those flood-gates of amazing ideas, heart-wrenching stories, and mind-blowing solutions? What’s the secret to helping them see the connections? How do I empower their voice through writing?”

Perhaps, this post has provided that answer. Perhaps, I should buy more post-it notes.

 

Your turn! Join the blogging challenge and post the link to your post in the comments! I read it, I promise…right after I organize that pile of papers in the corner.