Becoming a 7th grader again

In my school, I teach technology integration to 6th,7th, and 8th graders. I lovingly call my seventh graders, "the pod students." See in sixth grade the kids are sweet, eager to learn, and down right scared about the middle school experience. Eighth graders are more mellow, some taller than me, and are looked up to as the cool kids of the building. Then there are the seventh graders with their constant mood swings, their intellect, and their stupidity. Follow one and you may see laughing, crying, fighting, and laughing again within an hour. Most of the time they don't know why they make the decisions they do and they lack long-term focus. Of course this is my own observations and has little to do with solid research.

So, you may wonder what is the point of all of this?

I feel like I am leading the life of a seventh grader these day when it comes to my career. There are these incredible lows where nothing seems to be going right and then the incredible highs where everything seems to be falling into place. The highs of last week were great with winning the Best Buy grant and getting all of my proposals accepted for the MICCA conference. I wasn't as happy as I thought I would be when my principal gave me kudos about the grant at the faculty meeting. At one point I was looking onward to another job, but am the happiest when I am teaching in my room. For awhile I decided not to push technology anymore in my school and now I am working on two projects. It seems like utter chaos right now which probably means I am growing up a little bit.

I don't know where this is headed, but my hope is that I will morph into a cool tech leader.