On Turning 39

I’m writing tonight from a room at the National Writing Project’s Resource Development Retreat in Denver. I’ve been here the last couple of days, working to build some resources and support some other folks to get things made. Several of the NWP’s initiatives and projects are represented here, and there’re folks working on making assignments better, sharing how they’re doing things, and reaching for a little more dissemination of the work that’s going on in classrooms around the country.

Oh, and today?  It’s my 39th birthday.

I can think of few places I’d rather be on my birthday than with the folks and the organization that has done so much for me and my students across my varied career as a teacher, a consultant, an IT professional, a library administrator, and a writer and speaker about technology. Tonight, we’re gathered together to encourage each other to get some writing done. So we’re sitting around conference rounds typing away as fast as we can. Writing alone. Together ((There are also silly hats. I do not understand this, but it seems to be working, so I’m going with it.)).

This blog’s getting old, and so am I.  It’s been more than twelve years since I adopted, mostly by accident, the online identity of “Bud the Teacher.” And I’ve switched careers a couple of times since then. I wondered if it was time to drop this space, to say so long and start fresh somewhere else. I’ve made new spaces a couple of times, but they never stuck.

I’m still a teacher, even if the folks I’m teaching might not consider themselves “students.” I think I always will be. And I still am nowhere close to being done learning, which is what a teacher does, right up there in front of everybody ((Though more and more now, I teach and love to learn through budgets and proposals and coaching infrastructure. Frequently from the back of the room.))

So Bud the Teacher is still who I am, even if he was someone I never quite meant to be.

On this, the start of my 39th year, I want to write a bit about what I’m thinking about lately, what’s keeping me busy, and what I want to spend the last year of this decade and the first year of the next on. I want to try to push through the awkwardness of not knowing how to write in this space so much lately.

I’m going to learn how to blog again. Again.

I don’t blog like I used to. I don’t like that. I’d like this next year to see a little more of me.

I’ve been writing, certainly, and will never stop, but lots of my writing of late has gone into envelopes and mailboxes, as I’ve tried to work on being a better corresponder with friends and family. I just haven’t been writing here. Again, I’m hoping to change that.

The next couple of posts will be snapshots from my world right now.