Doing the math

• 25 years. 
• 4625 days.
• 41,625 hours. 
• 3150 students.
• 5300.5 parents. 
• 3515 recesses. 
• 1615 kickball games.
• 3203 wall ball games. 
• 17 computers
• Copies made = I can't even imagine
• 5 electric pencil sharpeners burned out. 
• 38,765 emails received. 
• About the same sent. 
• 4 different classrooms.
• Number of comfortable chairs to work from = 1 (and I just got it 17 days ago)
• 73 colleagues. 
• 73 family members, brothers and sisters, cousins, mothers and fathers.
• Marriages of staff members over all of those years = More than the divorces 
• Children born to staff members while they worked at Fernway = More than grandchildren (but it's getting closer and closer the longer I stay) 
• Times I have hung out in office like it was a living room = 2112
• Number of Oreos I have gotten from Mrs. Rider = 1320
• Days that completely changed my life because of the way my friends treated me with profound kindness =  March 17, 2007 and February 17, 2008. 
• Fairy Tale Trials =  63
• Number of Fairy Tale Trials I can still remember = 2 (this year's)
• Flight projects I have graded = 300, this year's were particularly fascinating.
• Time we have cracked up when  acting out Echo and Narcissus myth = every time. 
• Post-it notes put into The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler =1720
• Times I have said, "Show me you are listening" = Way too many
• Times I have used my teacher face on children in stores = at least 100, but probably many more (and, I've even used it on people I love, which, universally, frightens them)
• Mediators = 625
• Times I have cracked up with Adrain Lewis and Claudia McCord during mediation try-outs = 420
• Lunches spent eating with mediators = 1800 
• Games of hangman with the mediators = 1616
• 14 poetry plays. 
• 15,680 poems read. 
• Number of times I have cried while directing the poetry play = every year but one (it was too hot in the gym to cry) 
• Sick days accrued = 284
• Number of days I took because I was sort of sick, but mostly needed to be home to save my sanity = 1 a year, maybe two.  And in 2010, three (it was a hard year).
• 4 principals. 
• Minutes spent talking with principals = 304,420 and, not naming names, there's even one that trails me to the bathroom.  (But he's working on that).
• 19 retreats led. 
• Number of stupid games I made the staff do at those retreats = too many, but I don't care.
• Nickname = 1 (Reiny)
• Times I have fallen in or around school = 4, counting the time I flew down the stairs. Literally. 
• Times I have sung the words  "I am proud of Fernway, Is Fernway proud of me" = at least  470
• IB meetings = 8 billion, give or take
• Minutes spent typing during IB meetings = 480 billion
• Times I wish I had believed my mother when she said, "You really ought to learn to touch type." = at least once a day
• Number of times I doubted the worth of IB to our students or teaching staff = 0 
• Mistakes made = 9250, at least 
• Thoughts of giving up = 1280
• Number of times I have been really serious about that = 3
• Years it took me to be good at what I do = way more than I imagined
• Times during each day that I am awed by the hard work of my colleagues = at least 6 or 7
• Days I am completely blown away by the generous grace and abundant talents of children = 4625, see above
• Times I have thanked God for letting me be a teacher = too many to count
• Nights I go to sleep tired = every, including tonight

Thank you, FE, for being a home to me.