You know what I'm not doing so much of this break? Thinking. Today we walked around Uptown, shopped, had coffee, enjoyed the fresh snow, visited friends. Our house is cozy, we're planning menus for holiday meals, wrapping presents. Very calm. Where are the papers to write, the textbooks to read, the assignments to complete? What do you people in the real world do with all your time, anyway?
Then our dog ate 28 ounces of good Swiss chocolate (thanks, Mom!) and is now throwing up all over the house. This photo is before all that—check out the world's largest poinsettia (thanks, Rock!).
2 comments:
The contrast between school and not-school is astonishing, isn't it? I still notice it sometimes, ten years later, even though I have amnesia about much of the rest of it. It's a sweet enduring awareness.
Did you Photoshop® that poinsettia??
Consider this: I find the contrast between being a teacher and being a student is equally as profound as the mental terraces you've discovered this week.
This is why I LOVE being a student. It's very "in the moment" work. While my students wrote their Gatsby final and can mentally languish through winter break, I have to read and judge their work (all the while judging my own performance getting their brains to where they need to be) and to plan the next few weeks of lessons (some Marxist, Psychological, and Deconstruction crit lessons based on the readings I assigned over break -- I know, I'm evil).
But imagine your present serendipitous joy extended over almost three months.
Yup. The teacher's summer.
It's almost enough to make up for no bonus check, no fancy firm holiday party, and the lack of holiday Bloody Mary carts.
Ann
(PS I did suggest the BM cart to my principal, who suggested there have been recent days during which he would have been amenable to the idea... Specifically, a day the students have lovingly nicknamed "fight day.")
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