You know, working really gets in the way of living. I mean, it really takes over!
I love my job to pieces. Ask my friends, who, due to the last sentence, have already rolled their eyes. You see they have heard me rant, cry, gush, GUUUUUUSSSHHHHH, love, hate, fight, sing, and all kinds of other actions/emotions in regards to my job. BUT, and it's a big BUTT...it is not my life.
Teaching is, however, a big part of my life. I have instinctively and innately taught people (whether they liked it or not...you heard me Sue) my whole life. This is besides the truth of the matter. You can live and teach without being in a school...and more importantly I think you should...I think everyone should. I think teaching is the greatest thing you could do with your life. I think the most important way of doing that is to LIVE.
Living is best done in 70 degree weather. Thus today...I lived. It was fun. It was a lot of work.
Today, life started in a cool, breezy walk to school. I was totally jamming to a song in my head and probably walking like I had a wedgy, because that's how bad I jam when I walk. I have no idea then, why a coworker would slow down, roll down the window and ask this "babe" if she wanted a ride. There can not be anything attractive about the wedgey dance-walk. I don't know if the smile was interpreted properly in return, but I love a good joke, especially a long standing one like a "hey baby" in response to my obvious disdain for the classic "shaawwwtaaay" call of the young bucks. It makes my morning anytime I get that longstanding joke thrown at me in the morning. I threw back, like two monkey's flinging crap...I said I'd rather walk.
No disrespect, I really did. BUT, it is nice when a plan comes together and I can be sassy as well.
By June though...a nice morning walk can quickly fade. Let's be honest teachers, June is all about surviving. Brains have turned off, drooling begins (for teachers and students alike), and brick walls come up at every turn. BUT, it is also a time for nostalgia. I usually like students a little more in June because I have a limited time with them and there is really nothing more I can do for them beyond wrapping up the basics and appreciating the little teeny tiny personality traits that make you smile. Thus, worn out by lunch, I went for a walk.
I walked home, which is STILL totally awesome and hippi-pleasing. When I say I walk at lunch, it's the kind of walk you see the older fellas doing at the mall with the weights. You know the crew, the ones who's hips look like they will swing right off their bodies...right...left...right...left. I decided to walk all the way uptown, my hips kill tonight, let me tell ya! I went up and bought some sushi from my favorite fresh sushi place. Second time I've been there and hot sushi guy was there. HEAVEN. Ahh, 75 degrees by lunch, light breeze, blazing hot sushi chef. AND icing on the cake...I didn't carry the watermelon! If you don't know what I mean... Dirty Dancing... watch it. Like now:
Best lunch break EVER! Slick Sushi turned around to give me chopsticks, saw me smiling away like a big goofy dope and dropped all of my sushi, catching it with his hips just before it hit the floor. Don't worry, I ate it...it was in a big plastic container, no grossness. Yet another person to make my day. I practically did a jig out the door after he turned all red, fumbled to get the order together, complimented my dog (who was sitting outside), tongue twisting and swelling I am CERTAIN...mainly because I'VE BEEN THERE...a lot. Hahaha, I DIDN'T CARRY THE WATERMELON! WIN!
Side note: Let me tell you how bad I carry watermelons, almost on a weekly basis:
I think about two years ago on my birthday I went out to this American tapas bar for drinks. I told this guy at the bar who was nice enough to take our picture that he was "like the old guy at the bar."
Oh man, not old like that...
Me: "No no no no...not like that. I mean you are the guy who knows all the people here because your here all the time." Shoot, I am calling him a drunk...
"No, I mean..."
Heather: "Jackie, Let's leave now."
Me: "Sorry!"
I carry watermelons...BIG watermelons.
Anyway, lunch=sushi success.
Back to work: Sit down, turn around turn around, sit down, SERIOUSLY, what do you mean you don't know how to fill in a scantron?, no you can't use a calculator, no calculators, GIVE ME THAT CALCULATOR!, Sit down, sit down, SIT DOWN, fine...get in line, get in LIIIIIINNNNNNNNEEEEE. Go go go GOOOOOO, get in the cafe', GO INNNNN THE CAFE'
YES school is over...time for more living of life and teaching by example.
School teaching is so stressful because they time you. The students try to slow you down like a pace car, and it's a lot like trying to get those two opposite ends of the magnets to touch, in SO many ways. Add in that the government takes away your magnets and STILL expects you to get them and then get the opposite ends to touch...well that's basically teaching.
In real SINGLE life, the pace can be slowed. 77 degrees outside on the walk home, doing the wedgey-dance walk, no one beeps at me or makes fun of the awesomely awful walk and best yet, Bert the destroyer took a day off from destroying. I understand, it's difficult to be consistent.
Bert and I go outside and do my FAVORITE THING. I pretend to do something productive on a picnic blanket, see below:
AND THEN I fall asleep. Bert falls asleep also. He's way cuter about it though. You see, I feel weird now that I live in a townhouse. When I lived with my parents at the farm, I could fall asleep pretty much anywhere on the 20 acres and no stranger could see you. Townhomes: different. Townhomes: any nosy person in the area can peak through the chainlink fence to see me snoring away and the neighborhood folk can peek out their windows and see me totally napping away. It's a little weird. I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's the idea of opening your eyes to an audience, or someone walking right past me into my house without me seeing them. I can't get used to it, which is probably good, otherwise the naps would probably last until nightfall. This way, with the paranoia, they only last a very respectable 15-20 minutes.
Napping is awesome by the way.
Next: bike ride. Biking up to First Thursday, Listening to FLUX CAPACITOR. My friend told me about how much I'd love this band. He's always right about my music. I loved them from the first note. They are SO fun. They jam, they have dredlocks. More than likely they smell unique...A beautiful recipe.
Continuing the bike ride down to the park, this is because last night I saw MILLIONS of lightning bugs down there, and I just love that park. They take care, these local hippis, young and old, they take care of these local parks. I don't care what those Repubs say, we need these hippis in our life. I love bike rides, but it's not an innocent lust. One of the greatest things about bike rides is no one hears you coming. Not even in my old borrowed rusted heap. It squeaks for god's sake! How do these people not hear me?!
I always start out trying my hardest to get people to notice me...but I'm pretty sure my invisibility shield extends down to the bike when I ride. I've always been pretty invisible. It's partly because of my amazing stature. In high school, I got really good at ducking and weaving backpacks, hands with pencils in them, and butts. The butts were the worst. Thus I have learned to stand pretty solid when pushed.
ZOOOM ZOOOM...'SCUSE ME!!!!!
REVENGE IS SWEET. By the middle of the bike ride, I've given up being nice, now I'm just cutting and weaving in and out of small groups of old speed walking, hip-throwing, hearing impaired old ladies. I sneak a one-sided smile as I go past and I hear them sing "ooohhh myyyy!" with arms doing an awkward butterfly flap, arm skin swaying in the breeze. I am leaving those old and (sometimes young, prematurely old) unsuspecting people in my "eat that high school!" dust.
Ahhh, it's been a revitalizing prep for real life AKA Summer.
I hope you've learned from teacher.
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