I think that going straight from college to teaching high schoolers really did force me to become an all out grown-up quickly. I'm almost always conscious of how I present myself when I'm outside my trailer. In a community this small, I'm concerned about keeping up impressions.

I don't think I realized how much that had changed me until this roadtrip summer. When I'm really relaxing. When I'm laughing with friends. When I'm meeting strangers. When I'm recruiting seniors to blow bubbles at professors. When I'm dancing to the music that's being played because how can you hear this and not get on your feet. There's something that gets turned off too much in my new life. I need to take note and find a way to bring it back.

Update from the road, stop #1

It has been a great trip so far. It's amazing how much more I relax when I know that I don't have to lesson plan for another month and don't really need to for two months. I won't have anything to grade for a few weeks more....

Taking the longer time visit friends is lovely too. It's short enough that we still need to be intentional about spend time together, but long enough that we don't need to have deep conversation or doing something crazy every minute. You get back to that point of comfort where you can be with each other and not worry about ignoring each other.

So to all the people I've been with this week, thank you. To those of you who I will visit soon, I'm so excited! Yippee!