Friday afternoon at 3:30, to be precise. All the kids are gone. All the teachers are gone. The sun outside my window is to the right and going down, slowly.

It's quiet enough in here to notice the hum of the electronics and the fluorescents, and of course the sound of the speeding cars and trucks that go by on the busy avenue next to this school.

Usually it is so noisy with students coming and going, let alone the buzz in my own head as I cram planning ideas and grading/evaluating from the moment I get in my car in the morning to the time of day like right now, especially on a Friday, and especially just a few weeks away from the end of the semester, the end of the school year, the end of my second year as a teacher.

I love this work. I really did not know I would enjoy it so thoroughly for all those years when I fantasized tremendously about all the marvelous things I would do (write) when It finally worked out. I thought teaching was kind of loserish. I thought not about the teachers I had who I liked, but more about the ones who were unhappy in the job, who were not liked, and who didn't help me learn math as I should have learned it.

I was afraid of trying it, too, for such a long time. I saw teaching as a real option, but I think I thought that if I did it, if I decided to openly admit I wanted to teach, then I would also be saying I had given up on becoming a famous writer, or screenwriter, or TV writer. And it's not like I was doing a whole hell of a lot of writing, anyway. I sure filled up a lot of spiral notebooks with the food that I ate, and how I felt about that, but I wasn't doing any real writing, like the kind you do when you're trying to flesh out a book or a script. No, I was pretty much just fantasizing about doing that.

The irony of it is making my eyes water right now. I mean, I write every day now, and the quality of the content can really make a difference in someone's life--it's just that my audience is really, really small. And I turn around and try to encourage students to write, too, every day, every hour, to hone their abilities and make their words more effective. It's a nice little circle, and I really enjoy it.

How many other teachers must find themselves in this position? In fact, how many teachers come to the profession because they couldn't find the success they dreamed of in the more glamorous gigs? Anybody else out there?

And then you go and become a teacher because you've got to pay the bills and you've always enjoyed being around kids and you like reading and writing... And you do it and you find out you really, really like the job a lot, that it gives you satisfaction and pleasure and laughs and tears (yesterday I read a short story from one of my creative writing students that had me weeping for a few moments).

I just feel very content right now. What a nice, nice thing that is.