Things For Which I Am Thankful.

It is Thanksgiving. Here is my list of things for which I am thankful:

- I am thankful for my wonderful wife, who puts up with a lot of stress to allow me to attend school each day.

- I am thankful for the opportunity to be in Project Promise, giving me a chance to fulfill my dream of being a teacher.

- I am thankful for Mr. Guy Jewett, my cooperating teacher at Cache La Poudre Junior High School. He has been a good friend and ally throughout the last couple of months. I have learned many things from him and have always been entertained. He has given me the freedom to do anything that I wish in our classroom and I am very appreciative.

- I am thankful for my parents, who are helping me through my student teaching. Without them, this would not have been possible.

- I am thankful for my family, my kids, my inlaws, etc. Their love and support have been invaluable to me over the last couple of months.

- I am thankful that my wife knows how to make really good Potato and Cabbage Soup. We eat this a lot nowadays, along with Macaroni. Student Teachers do not have a very high income.

- I am thankful for good coffee. I have it when I can, which isn't too often.

- I am thankful for my kids (students) at Cache La Poudre Junior High School. They have made me laugh, made me cry, made me happy and made me mad. Some days it is a chore just to be with them for a whole day and some days it is a pleasure from start to finish. I guess that is how teaching is.

- I am thankful for my Project Promise cohort. I know that if I need support, help or just an ear to complain to, they will be there. In particular, I am thankful for Robert, who is in the same boat as me.

- I am thankful for the people who invented computers, networks, hard drives, the Internet, the overhead projector, the mouse and any other applicable computer peripheral you can think of. Without all of this technology, my job and my life would be a lot more difficult.

- I am thankful for the Headblade company, that makes the razor I use every morning.

- I am thankful for Thanksgiving. When you are in school, Thanksgiving is a holiday. We get five days off from school. I have not thought about school more than twice this whole time. Thanks for the break, guys, I needed it!

- I am thankful for Mr. Rob Denise, who took it upon himself ten years ago to transform the CLP Technology department into one of the best of any school in the state. I have learned so much about computers and applications since coming to CLP that it is hard to describe.

- I am thankful for Ms. Terry Deniston, one of my favorite people. She is the first year Director of the Project Promise program and has been fighting for us and our cohort since the very beginning. That she has offered me a Graduate Research Assistant position redesigning the Project Promise website makes me even more grateful for her.

- I am thankful to be (just about almost) completely done with my Business Methods class. That class was one of the most miserable experiences of my academic career and has almost completely turned me off of the idea of wanting to teach Business at the High School level.

- I am thankful for good beer. I get this even less often than I get good coffee.

- I am thankful for the Macromedia company, who designed the software suite that I have learned over the last four months. They did good work.

- I am thankful for blogger.com, who put together this neat Internet novelty called the "blog," and let me write all of this stuff to you.

- and I am thankful to you, for reading my work.