This week’s guest blogger is faculty member Laura Michaels.  Graduating from Franklin & Marshall, Laura joined the Woodstock team two years ago as a Spanish teacher.  She has since taken on numerous challenges including media liaison, Habitat for Humanity Spring Break coordinator, and wilderness guru. Laura took some time this busy week to take a breath and reflect on her winter trimester.

Winter always presents an interesting conundrum-a long stretch until spring break, bleak weather, and seasonal affectedness disorder. Somehow, though, this winter went by faster than it did last year. Here’s why:

1. A family education marathon: In January and February, I facilitated a sibling FLC, participated in a regional retreat, and helped co-facilitate a wilderness FLC. Through these three different programs, I not only gained a lot of perspective on myself, my goals, and where I’m headed, but also got a chance to grow closer to a number of families. It kept me busy on the weekends (which is a good thing when it’s cold, yucky, and I wasn’t coaching) and it gave me a chance to see a variety of people in action!

2. Changing up the pace: I let my B period Spanish II class design their own project during this term for one of the vocabulary lessons in an effort to test out project-focused learning. It was neat to watch them become a more cohesive group as they worked together to create, complete, and grade the project. Personally, I felt that that was one of the best teaching moments I’ve had with them this year, and I’m hoping to continue to have them take the lead this spring.

3. Endurance: I may not have seasonal affectedness disorder “technically,” but it sure feels that way when the sky is grey and gloomy, the temperature is much lower than I’d like it, and maybe there’s some snow to top it all off. Endurance came for me in the form of maintaining my personal well being despite my desire to curl up in a ball on my couch with my cats. For the first time, I think I actually managed to keep up my running through the whole winter. Whether it was the gym, braving the wild outdoors, and even a short jog in boots in Eustis, I was determined to keep it up because running centers me. As I told students at a school meeting, I run because it helps me to process my day and it helps me to continue to maintain my spirit. So that’s my motto-just keep running.

This winter, I had more smiles on my face than frowns and I really enjoyed the trimester. As I look forward to the Habitat for Humanity trip next week, I’m psyched to get to give back to the community and to take the kids to a (hopefully) warmer climate in North Carolina. Bring it on spring break!