Sprint or Marathon

As teachers go, life comes down to sprints or marathons. Our life is a compilation of days and weeks of random lengths, with the finish line being the next available holiday. For example, we are just coming off of Fall Break. Now, don't start bitching at me for having a week off and saying you didn't. Teachers all know we have a good gig. But we do earn it. This, from a guy who before he became a teacher, said those same words; until I did the job and then realized that there isn't enough time for the therapy and oh, don't forget, I am expected to go back to school and get another degree, more education, seminars, and stuff to keep me 'sharp.'

Please, I need a week sitting on a boat, moored in some harbor somewhere just pretending to sail and trying to decide where I am going for lunch. Joni, being a special education teacher, does IEP's in her 'off hours.' We sat down and figured it out, her hourly salary is right around $7 an hour. She could earn more putting fruit out at the Fry's than she does at school. So, its understandable when she has true down time, she likes to sleep in and then curl up in the corner and suck her thumb. Me, I find relaxation by reading, writing, painting, or playing 'Dodge Ball' with trucks on the freeway. So, with that, we measure our time from one break to the next either as a sprint or a marathon.

Example: It's now October so it is a marathon to summer break.

Another example: we just came off of Fall Break (Joni is just going on break so that's why I'm not writing this from some beach cottage in Fiji) and I know I have almost exactly one month to Veteran's Day. Test it. Ask any teacher and they will be able to tell you when their next holiday is. This is a good example of the individual sprints from one break to the next. We teachers don't measure grading by semesters or terms but by holidays and what goes in between them.

Now, its weird this time of year because Halloween is not a holiday but more of a marker. It feels like a holiday because Walgreens has been selling bats and witch hats since July plus it is the doorway to the winter season and halfway to Veteran's Day, which, of course, is just two weeks until Thanksgiving, the only holiday with two-TWO days, making it a four-day weekend. Then, its a down hill run to Christmas! Or, as we like to call it in the politically correct world-Winter Break. Throw in weekends and a teacher or any staff member at any school can tell you, almost to the hour, when time off is coming.

So, in the second week of October, as I crawl out of the mire and muck of what was a delightful week of working around the house and doing mind-freeing tasks, as I look down range at nine more weeks until Santa shows up to my door and offers me a forty-year old scotch, I am reminded why I went into this profession. Yeah, sure, the breaks and time and the fact that I wasn't traveling or working weird hours anymore, is part of it. I hate to admit it, there is something I miss about adolescent teens and their pines of woe. Some of them really have those-for real. Others are just dorks that make me laugh. So I'm going back with a half-assed smile and clean underwear (tell the truth men, when you're off for a while, don't you forget to change your underwear?)

Besides, who would teach them how to play dodge ball on the freeway?