I have the range of students. While many of the top students are funneled into the advanced language arts classes (which I do not teach), I still get plenty of great students. I also have students who fight me every day just to write down one sentence (let alone a paragraph). Middle school is the best time to get them into better habits and better mindsets, but we don't have much leverage as even students who fail all of their classes are usually socially promoted so that we don't have 16-year old post-pubescent eighth graders in the same school as 12 year-old seventh graders who are just getting flooded with hormones. I don't have solutions to these issues.
I fixed Connor's bike so that the chain would stop falling off and felt a bit like super-dad in doing so. His bike skills have really taken off in the past two weeks. He and Rowen also met our neighbor to the north and chatted with her for a while today. They certainly are social.
Most of my social interactions have been at work. While we've had one coworker over, I've been hesitant to make more invitations due to our limited hosting ability. I also haven't totally gotten the feel for people. I'm getting a better sense of some of my coworkers, but others are still enigmas to me.
However, the one thing we've been able to agree on is that the students have been extra hyper these past two weeks.