I Don't Have Time to Blog

I really shouldn't be doing this.

I have imminent packing responsibilities, crazy-too-much work, I'm on the phone with a mortgage specialist RIGHT NOW (well, holding...cue uplifting piano elevator music) and yeah. Stuff.

But I want to have a bit of a record of this move process. So it dawned on me that I could enter blog posts like a journal, just a few lines here and there, and not have to say everything all at once. Here goes...

Friday, June 13  9:15 am

Horrors. It's Friday the 13th! Nah. Never bothered me.
I'm sure everything will be FINE. (nail biting ensues)
House is officially sold, signed and sealed, so now the packing begins in earnest.
Not just packing, but sorting - the agonizing sorting know as "Organizing". They even have specialists who do this. I'm wondering if it will be an Olympic sport. Now, I should be good at organizing, because I was the Go-To organizer in our household growing up. The cupboards, the bookshelves, the closets, the junk drawer...all these I was recruited regularly to sort out. And so developed the myth that Pam is a good organizer. I say myth, because it's not true!! Under duress I can indeed organize, but it's not really natural. I don't care if things are haphazard, as long as I can stuff them in a drawer when company comes over. So I suppose I excel at the appearance of organization. Hmm.

Back to today.  Typically, I have 3 or 4 things I'm working on at once. And about 34 threads of thought streaking like night-traffic seen from space. (cue sound effects - "piyooo! piyooo!")
 - Should we keep the red bucket that I ran over 5 years ago? Or throw it out? What if we don't have the money for a new bucket? Better keep it.
- The garage was clean, now it's a new disaster. We are going to have to bring in the army to help us get out of this place, I just know it!
- The lawn needs to be mowed ALREADY?!?!? AGAIN??!!
- The cat's pregnant. Should we try and give her away this minute or keep her and enjoy the kittens?
 - Groceries. Need groceries. Somehow that annoying "food is essential for life" thing keeps cropping up. No pun intended.
 - My clothes are horrible. I hate them, every single item. Except for those new socks. Should I give away all my clothes? I don't feel like packing these ugly clothes!

So yeah. It goes on like that. All at once, and once again I've had way too much coffee already today. I'm tping way fastr tha I cann spell. !! Gaaa!!

Better run. ttfn.

Teaching is Hard

The obvious statement. Every teacher knows it. Even students know it, somewhere in the back of their minds, in a barely conscious place. 
No really, teaching is harder for some people than others. 

I, for example, imagine myself a tightrope walker, and the tension is hard to keep up. Feigned relaxation may be the most stressful thing known to man, other than waiting in line at the grocery store when you loaded 10 too many things in your basket and your kids are running wild, or being pulled over for speeding when you were taking the closest exit to a gas station washroom ....polite, polite, polite.

At school I love the students. There are little things that drive me crazy, yes. Like stop yapping and get some bloody work done.

 The tightrope I walk is that I naturally resist the carefulness, the checking, the necessity of homework, the pursed lips and the near-sighted perusing of notes and assignments, discussing meter in poetry (gag) and gee, it basically sounds like I resent curriculum and want to do whatever I want. 

Yeah....

Well, that's not terribly far off the truth! But I DO the curriculum, and just make sure what we study and how we study it is as interesting as possible. 

The tightrope is wanting to laugh uproariously and tell idiotic jokes, wanting to break into dance or song or a rant, and being held oh-so-fragile above the circus crowd by needing to be a good teacher, by caring enough for the students and my job to educate them properly and professionally. 
But OH!! Sometimes my mask slips. 
 I thought I saw a . . . what is that? Glitter? A microphone, that frantic beat? Quick, shut it down. Do the job.

"May I have your attention, I am writing valuable things here on the whiteboard, can't you see how hard I am trying, don't you want to know??'
Perhaps I cannot do this over the long haul. How long can one perform these feats? What is the average shelf life of a secretly crazy teacher? 

There is a strong possibility that other teachers feel the same way. Do you ever long to hug a student and say, hey, throw that blasted essay away. I'm sorry I just explored that great story/novel/poem/film with you and then sucked away all trace of joy or the thrill of discovery by making you write a focused, concise, well-supported essay of 500 words. Due Friday. There will be a 2.5% late penalty for every day late, up to a maximum of . . .. . . . . . . . . . 

 Does this circus use nets? Because I sense a free-fall coming on.