Teaching is becoming incrementally more manageable, as in I'm managing to keep my head above the surface of a vast ocean in a recurring analogy for the frantic doggy-paddling that my life has become.
Due to this turbulent new state, I need a day off in a real bad way. Last spring I had 1.5 classes a day, two days a week. I had more free time than a puma in the winter. I had so much free time that I wrote to the point of carpal tunnel, and I ate so much cereal that my hunger was actually, miraculously satisfied.
Now? Now is a different story. Now I have to practically inhale half a bowl just to make it to school early enough to copy the ten thousand pages I'll need to keep the kiddos occupied for one damn day.
Now? Now my weekends bring indescribable joy, but one that wears off by Saturday morning as the reality of long hours of grading and eye-twitching ones of planning sets in. Now all I daydream about is the expected euphoria of a Thanksgiving that has every potential to be the best of my short life.
But I don't know if I'm going to make it to that euphoria without taking a sick day (even though I'm perfectly healthy). My weeks are filled with chaos, cacophony, and cursing under breath (by students and by me), and my weekends are chock-full of schoolwork, so it feels as though I haven't had a day off since early September. (That's right, the Hartford school district doesn't recognize Veteran's Day, Columbus Day, OR Halloween.)
So I may as well plan my forthcoming "sick day" because it's inevitable that I take one...
Mr. Londberg's Day Off
This is how I'll start my day. (Yes, you need to click that link right meow.)
Then I'll make some fuggin' french toast. Because I say that far too often and do it far too unoften.
Next I'll drive by my school just as the kiddos are arriving. I'll smile and wave as I slowly pull up. I'll roll down a window, tell them to have a nice day, that I'll see them next time, and then I'll laugh uncontrollably. A singular tear will stream down each of their faces, the result of a dawning recognition on their part that their favorite teacher is taking the day off.
I'll then call the principal to let her know that I have the flu, have been in bed all morning, and that, no, there's no way any students could have possibly seen me only sixty seconds prior, in my car, laughing at them. Must have been my evil twin, I'll say with a choked chuckle that will transition nicely into a feigned gurgling, pre-vomit burp. I'll frantically say I gotta go and hang up the phone.
At this point the fun will begin.
I'll play It's Time to Say Goodbye with all my windows down so the last of the straggling students shuffling into the building can hear it.
I'll drive back home and bask in the precious silence of an empty house. I'll read. I'll write. I'll laugh for no reason at all. I'll call Black Bamboo and order a mountain of fried rice, and I'll eat it slowly, oh-so-pleasantly slowly, in bed.
At this point it will be about 11:00 a.m. A subtle loneliness will seep into my psyche, so used to being bombarded with the little people's confoundingly entertaining platitudes. My resilience will crumble–gradually at first, and then faster and faster, until a completely unexpected, completely debilitating guilt overrides the high of skipping school.
I'll get dressed, get on my bike, and pedal back. I'll enter the school–the teacher that had a miraculous recovery from an awful bug. It will be lunchtime, and I'll hear the din coming from the cafeteria.
I'll stop dead in my tracks.
The din will heighten, becoming a deafening roar, drowning out any semblance of measured, peaceful thought.
I will turn around. Exit the school. Skidaddle back home. Get back in bed. Eat leftover fried rice until my stomach turns to knots. And then nap. For the first time in months; for six hours.
When I wake, I'll be moved to tears. Of joy. For it's Friday. The weekend. And I successfully skipped my first day of school as a teacher.
Due to this turbulent new state, I need a day off in a real bad way. Last spring I had 1.5 classes a day, two days a week. I had more free time than a puma in the winter. I had so much free time that I wrote to the point of carpal tunnel, and I ate so much cereal that my hunger was actually, miraculously satisfied.
Now? Now is a different story. Now I have to practically inhale half a bowl just to make it to school early enough to copy the ten thousand pages I'll need to keep the kiddos occupied for one damn day.
Now? Now my weekends bring indescribable joy, but one that wears off by Saturday morning as the reality of long hours of grading and eye-twitching ones of planning sets in. Now all I daydream about is the expected euphoria of a Thanksgiving that has every potential to be the best of my short life.
But I don't know if I'm going to make it to that euphoria without taking a sick day (even though I'm perfectly healthy). My weeks are filled with chaos, cacophony, and cursing under breath (by students and by me), and my weekends are chock-full of schoolwork, so it feels as though I haven't had a day off since early September. (That's right, the Hartford school district doesn't recognize Veteran's Day, Columbus Day, OR Halloween.)
So I may as well plan my forthcoming "sick day" because it's inevitable that I take one...
Mr. Londberg's Day Off
This is how I'll start my day. (Yes, you need to click that link right meow.)
Then I'll make some fuggin' french toast. Because I say that far too often and do it far too unoften.
Next I'll drive by my school just as the kiddos are arriving. I'll smile and wave as I slowly pull up. I'll roll down a window, tell them to have a nice day, that I'll see them next time, and then I'll laugh uncontrollably. A singular tear will stream down each of their faces, the result of a dawning recognition on their part that their favorite teacher is taking the day off.
I'll then call the principal to let her know that I have the flu, have been in bed all morning, and that, no, there's no way any students could have possibly seen me only sixty seconds prior, in my car, laughing at them. Must have been my evil twin, I'll say with a choked chuckle that will transition nicely into a feigned gurgling, pre-vomit burp. I'll frantically say I gotta go and hang up the phone.
At this point the fun will begin.
I'll play It's Time to Say Goodbye with all my windows down so the last of the straggling students shuffling into the building can hear it.
I'll drive back home and bask in the precious silence of an empty house. I'll read. I'll write. I'll laugh for no reason at all. I'll call Black Bamboo and order a mountain of fried rice, and I'll eat it slowly, oh-so-pleasantly slowly, in bed.
At this point it will be about 11:00 a.m. A subtle loneliness will seep into my psyche, so used to being bombarded with the little people's confoundingly entertaining platitudes. My resilience will crumble–gradually at first, and then faster and faster, until a completely unexpected, completely debilitating guilt overrides the high of skipping school.
I'll get dressed, get on my bike, and pedal back. I'll enter the school–the teacher that had a miraculous recovery from an awful bug. It will be lunchtime, and I'll hear the din coming from the cafeteria.
I'll stop dead in my tracks.
The din will heighten, becoming a deafening roar, drowning out any semblance of measured, peaceful thought.
I will turn around. Exit the school. Skidaddle back home. Get back in bed. Eat leftover fried rice until my stomach turns to knots. And then nap. For the first time in months; for six hours.
When I wake, I'll be moved to tears. Of joy. For it's Friday. The weekend. And I successfully skipped my first day of school as a teacher.