Chapter 6 - Turn Arounds

 I spent half of the next day getting all of the notes together for class, flipping through the books, looking at the map, and then back to writing more notes. As I was looking at my map again I did a double take. A name jumped out a me, the name of a city, Venice. I got a sudden feeling of deja vu like I had been to this city at some point in my life. Wanting to look into this later I wrote the name of the city down and circled it on my map. What could it be about this place that made me get little flutters in my stomach?

 Suddenly feeling restless I put everything away and went for a hike to clear my head. During the hike I came across a few odd uncommon seeds. I gathered all of them up, deciding to plant them in my new garden over the weekend, and then I went home to make steak and potatoes for dinner.

 When I took dinner out of the oven it looked and smelled so good that I ate quicker than normal. After doing the dishes i decided to head to bed, tomorrow was going to be a long day.

 As i opened my eyes I realized that I was not in my bed anymore but outside standing on the patio of, what i could tell, was a very beautiful home.

"1845," I said to myself as I read the numbers next to the front door of the house, "Whose house is this?  Where am I?"

Suddenly I was standing in front of a first story window. Looking through the window I noticed a man sitting on a couch facing away from the window and a beautiful Doberman Pincher sitting closely behind the man, almost like the dog was guarding the family. In front of them was a woman dressed in a pristine white suit knelt down, arms outstretched, waiting for a beautiful little girl to walk towards her.

"Why am I here?" I thought to myself, "Why does this house and this family seem so familiar?"

  I suddenyl opened my eyes and noticed that i was in my bed, in my room, in my own house.

"What just happened?" I thought to myself.

It was a dream but it felt so real, almost as if it was a memory. But it couldn't be that, I don't remember ever seeing those people before (even though i could not see their faces in the dream.)

 I glanced over at the clock next to my bed and realized that I had just over an hour before I needed to be at the school. I showered, changed, and had a quick bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee. Then I grabbed my things, got in my car, and left for my first day of work.

After putting my map up, books on each of the desks, and organized all of my supplies on my desk, I wrote my name and notes on the chalkboard.

 At exactly 8 a.m. the bell rang and I nervously watched my students walk in. The students came in, looked at, and  whispered to each other before quickly sitting down.

"Good morning students. I am Miss Abruzzi, your new Geography teacher. It is my understanding that your grades have been less than ideal in this class. Well, that is all about to change. I can guarantee that by winter break your grades will be much better. We will be working hard in this class but I think you will find that we will still have fun."

 We worked our way through the teaching plan I had for the day, making sure they wrote everything down. Just a few minutes before class ended I handed out homework.

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4 months later it was the last day of class before Winter Break and class was going fantastic. The students grades had already gone from F's to C's and all of my students kept telling me that they loved having me as a teacher so far.

 Throughout these past few months I had been doing research on Venice but I really didn't know where to start and I didn't know what to look for.

I decided to let my students have a free day today, which they were excited about. During that time Mr Gerini stopped by our class.

"Hello Mr Gerini."

"Hello Miss Abruzzi, how are you?"

"I am doing fine, just letting the kids have a free day today."

"Yes, I see that. I just wanted to come by and let you know we are all proud of the way you are getting these kids to turn their grades around."

"Thank you, we have been working hard but still having a good time."

"Well you are doing fantastic. I hope you have a good break and I will see you in January."

Once class let out I picked up my check and hurried to the bank to cash it. I had been planning a trip to Shang Simla, China for a couple months now and today was the day i leave. After picking up my luggage I headed to the airport. While on the plane I thought about the great adventures I would get to do, learning Karate, all of the yummy food I would get to try, and all of the beautiful pictures I would get to take.