Summertime Bliss

I love teaching. I love giving teenagers new opportunities to learn something, I love helping them mold their writing skills, I love opening their eyes to new adventures in literature.

But today, my favorite part of teaching is the fact that I have the summer off. Or rather, that I chose to have the summer off.

What's frustrating is to hear non-educators say, "Well, it must be nice that teachers get their summers off." Hell yeah it's nice - but we earn our summers off. We spend 8 hours a day with 120-180 teenagers/kids (unless you're Andy - then you have 35 really tough kids), countless hours grading, creating lesson plans, attending professional developments, sitting in 10 milion different kinds of meetings involving the school or smaller learning community or department or grade level, we plan and grade during the holidays, even parts of the summer. My eyesight is getting worse each year due to the students' increasingly negligent handwriting and I've been threatened. Teaching isn't easy.

But it's so nice to relax during the summer. And so far, my summer's been pretty relaxing. Soon, however, I'll be at Rice University for a week and then 5-6 weeks in DC, so I will be extremely busy. But for now, I leisurely wake up (still around 6:30 - my body does not respond to late sleeping, and neither does my dog), work out for a couple of hours, hang by the pool for an hour or so, babysit my godchild, and then my evenings are completely free. I may be at Starbucks, I may be at the movies, I may be at the gym again, I may be sitting on my arse watching television. I have nothing to grade, nothing to plan. I am doing a smidgeon of work, however, in the form of reading a novel that I have to teach in the fall and answering the study guide questions. I will be doing a great deal of reading this summer, which I love, but I'll be reading school novels. I have to finish Jane Eye, and read Ella Minnow Pea and Do's and Taboos Around the World. I hope to have Jane Eyre finished before I go to DC (plus read those Shakespeare plays).

Hmm. I guess I'm not relaxing as much as I could. But I'm reading by the pool and workin' on my tan.

Cheers!

By the way, if anyone is actually following my posts... the result of my musings last week was very satisfactory. :)

You Didn't Have to Ask

Of course I'll answer. But send me a text message first - I'm still in school this week giving finals.

:)

Who's the More Foolish, the Fool or the Fool Who Follows?

As the school year comes to a close, I must pause and reflect. This was a very interesting school year. It definitely had it's up, professionally, and it's lows, personally.

Here are some things I miss.
1) Playing a 100 point word in Scrabble, knowing my opponent is cursing me on his side of the computer.
2) Randomly sending Shakespeare quotes to someone via text message.
3) Trading crazy school stories.
4) Joking about Samuel L. Jackson being the killer in every movie.
5) Playing Trivial Pursuit on a short road trip.
6) Trading running stories.
7) Looking for the elusive blue coffee cup in movies.
8) Speaking, using big words and then giving kudos for the word choice.
9) Listening about Big Brother rantings (and I'm not talking about the silly tv show)

I find myself wondering, however, is it bad to dwell on the good? If dwelling on the positive makes me forget the negative? And how does one know if one is really lying to oneself or if one is being true to oneself, because sometimes the lies one tells oneself sound so believable?

Sigh. Ultimately, it takes two to tango, and most of the time the chick dancing by herself looks like a fool.

Only one person knows what I'm talking about, so if you're confused... it's ok; this posting isn't for you to understand. As for that one person who does understand... I don't know if you're even reading this. I don't even know what point I'm trying to get across, other than our friendship still creeps into my mind when sometimes I wish it wouldn't. I always look back, even though you told me not to. I can't help it; that's who I am. Foolish.