Bronwyn Harris, Author

I'm hoping by writing this post, I'll be able to sleep tonight instead of staying awake worrying, which is what I do. I'm worried about this family that I'm working with. The mom is doing so well - she's doing so much work (that is overdue, but better late than never) on repairing her relationship with her oldest child now living with her and on taking steps to get her papers to be legal in the US, to try and work out her kids' welfare benefits, to get her children's health and education taken care of, everything. And it's so much work. She wants to work (she cleans houses) and can't find any work. None. I've tried and continue to try (she's a really good housecleaner!) but no one's paying for that right now. The promised welfare benefits are not coming and the social worker will not return calls. We've enlisted the help of a welfare lawyer, but that's going to take time. And time is what this family does not have right

This is the third year I'm not going back to school. I thought about trying to find a part-time teaching job for this school year but nothing came up and I got a lot more copy editing work, so I'm putting it off another year. I'm finding myself in that stage where I remember only the good things so I get really nostalgic about teaching. Until I remember how tired I was. How very, very tired. Things I miss about the beginning of school: The excitement of getting my class list Thinking about and praying for my new students Buying school supplies Labeling school supplies (I don't know why that's fun, but it is) Laying out school supplies in their desks Things I don't miss at all: Getting up early Having more kids in my classroom than I am legally allowed to have. Having the class list change 17 times in the first two days Not having all my supplies Being told that I should be using x book even though I never got x book Being treated like it is my fault I never g