Circling Back

Revisiting this Blog

This preamble is a short recap of how I stumbled back into this space after over a decade of dormancy. I'm up before dawn on a Sunday, leisurely enjoying breakfast and some personal time when I look at that dotted Rubik's cube in the corner of my Gmail and wonder -- is my blog still there? The one I started in, what was it, 2012? Lo and behold, not only was it there, but it instantly threw me back to 2016 - the year of my last post, which happened to be written the day after Trump was elected President. (The only such election he's won so far, let's be clear.)

It turns out I started the blog in 2010, and if I dust off the memory, it's because I was about to launch an AP English Language class wherein I wanted students to blog on a regular basis. I was never much for journal-writing, personally, so I resisted assigning a journal to students. But I wanted this new class I was developing to incorporate several new elements that were not quite woven into modern schooling just yet, particularly this burgeoning "internet" that everyone was talking about. Asking students to blog seemed to make the most sense, which led me to start one myself. 

As you can see if you scroll through the front page, I managed about an entry a month for two years. Then, in 2013, the gaps between entries get a little wider. That was when I was wrapping up my Master's degree and beginning to seek an administrative position. I handed off the speech and debate program I had helmed for a dozen years, and in July of that year, jumped into my first full-time leadership position as an Associate Principal at William C. Overfelt High School in San Jose. And the blogs mostly stopped. 

The time may be right to bring them back. Compared to the stability of being an English teacher stalwart from 1999-2012, the next dozen years, when viewed as a whole, looks like a churning, volatile evolution. I've served as Associate Principal, Principal, and state-level curriculum developer. In the last two years, I have been called into adult-learning centers, becoming the first on-site leader for a district's Post-Secondary program, and now, I am a dean at a community college. There is a firmness under me that I haven't felt in a while. Shortly after our son moved out to start his university journey, my wife and I relocated to be closer to the college where I work. We rediscovered community - a warm and welcoming neighborhood and city, inviting us to plant a new set of roots. And I'm really quite excited to do that, to get to know as many of my colleagues and neighbors and fellow community members as I can. To learn the language and the heartbeat of this new landscape. I know my wife is eager to do the same - heck, she knows a lot more neighbors than I do. And I've encouraged her to write a blog as a way of inviting that connection.

So the circle closes. Time for me to come back and model modern journalling. The irony is that I also have an "analog" journal that I write in each morning - a beautiful leather-bound gift from the college Vice President that supervises me. It has the word "Leader" embossed on the front cover. And I've made a personal goal to complete 250 entries this calendar year. I'm on pace, so far - about a quarter of the way there.

Don't be surprised if some of those entries get re-posted here. I may not be able to keep up this online journal otherwise. 😉😆