Peregrinations

I gave my first keynote speech today.  I have been working and stressing over it for about a month, tweaking, revising, and just generally driving my friends and family insane with drafts and slide decks.  I got to the convention center early enough to set up my laptop and practice one final time. I was the closing speaker at a three-day conference, so I knew what the audience really wanted was for me to be fast so they could enjoy some of those precious post-conference moments of food, shopping, or other blissfully responsibility-free activities teachers always seem to enjoy.   As I waited for everything to get started, the 2012 Teacher of the Year came up and introduced herself.  She had such kind and wonderful words of support. She knew exactly what it was like to be sitting there still more or less awestruck that any of this was even happening to me.  Her encouragement exactly what I needed to hear before I stepped up to present.  I hope that I can...