"This is my special teacher. She runs in the winter!"

There are a few topics that come up with surprising regularity in my classroom. The first is my fiance, Scott. My students adore him (everybody does!) and love to ask about what he ate for breakfast that day, what movies he likes to watch, and of course, when he will be coming to visit room 206 again. The second is my wardrobe. Ask my students what I wore last Tuesday, they probably can tell you. I don't get it, but it's pretty entertaining.

The third, to my surprise, is my running. It is pretty normal that my big 8th grade boys ask me first thing Monday morning about how much I ran over the weekend. They want to know how many miles, what the weather was like, if I stopped for water, and if I ran with my friends. My students are fascinated by what time I wake up in the morning to go for a run during the week and usually remind me to watch out for ice (I broke my hand last winter running over ice, the memory still lives on.)

Again, I don't get it but I have to admit it warms my heart to hear my middle school students asking with so much interest about something that brings me so much joy. And I have to admit, I love knowing that even when I do something kind of stupid like run a half marathon mid-January in sub-zero temperatures, my kids will not think about the decision and only care that I drank gatorade at mile 8... "and it was free, Ms. Rajanen? that's awesome!"

This past week I had a visitor from DePaul University in my classroom. A really nice graduate student from the school of education who is considering the field of special education. My students love an audience so when I told them there was a visitor coming, they were ready.

I happened to be running a quick errand to the office when she came to my room and so my students were on their own to welcome her to our room. I can only imagine what they said to her before I walked in, but when I arrived one of my very sweet students brought her over to me and said, "This is my special teacher. She runs in the winter!"

I love them. So much.