Spring Break Swan Song

Is it wrong to most enjoy being paid for your job when you're not actually there?... Tomorrow, I WILL go to school after a glorious week and a day (and another day I took off on the front end). We spent the first weekend in San Antonio, TX for the AAE Annual Session, and it was lovely catching up with endodontic friends and my former and still fabulous AAE staffers and employer. I danced, I shoped at the supermercado, I guac-ed it up every day. Brian and I drove back together Sunday (I flew in Thursday to join him).

The rest of the break was overtly relaxing. I made it a point to burn no more than a quarter tank of gas whatever I ended up doing. We painted eggs, I caught up on my housework, reading, and gardening, and we had some major repairs done to the ceiling. Alas, I wish I had timed my housework to be after instead of the eve of the ceiling new prime, popcorn, and paint job. Instead, my housework served as bookends to the whole ordeal. From Tuesday to Saturday, it looked like we were housing E.T. in our makeshift medi-vac living room. But that's what spring break is all about: a break from the norm to catch up on cleaning, household, and personal maintenance. I got enough of "school" accomplished to feel decent about my plan for this week (and the next 4 weeks, count it down!), but I couldn't help feeling a sinking sensation as I made my lunch tonight. I had to pull out my discarded lunchbox which I had stuffed in the bowels of the pantry, out of site out of mind until tonight. Even sitting dormant for a week and a half, it still retained the ripe, rotten, something's gone BAD smell of my classroom which I also had blissifully shoved out of sniff/ out of mind. It came raging back, and I felt so grateful for the time away... but why must a person, or her 70 students, put up with a horrible dank odor M-F...? The smell was enough to depress me.

Let alone that 100 teachers were RIFed Friday, April 15 before we were all let out. Moral will be at an all-time low, and just in time for state testing to commence Wed. I don't know if I still have a job, since I played hookie on the 15th. As much as I know I shouldn't be saying this, it's the ultimate win-win if I'm one of the teachers let go: unemployment sponsored paid vacation beginning in August, and plus, freedom from dealing with the 30-50% class size increase. I'll tell you now: 25 is too much, even with half of them good kids. There are too many different learning styles and too many wannabe thugs that it's way too much to expect class sizes that large to be effective. Life is too short to wish away 9 months out of the year, and there just isn't enough money is the booze budget to self-medicate after a day of 90 kids, 90 minutes each. Block schedule, remember?

I'll keep y'all posted. Today is the Confederate Memorial Day (last Monday in April). I actually heard the Civil War called "The War between the States" twice today on the radio. What's wrong with celebrating the fallen Confederate soldiers with the rest of the Union's casualties on the regular Memorial Day? Still pushing that separate but equal agenda, I guess.

I mentioned we'll be going into state testing for the next two weeks. My classroom is used for testing so my students and I are relocated to the gym where we are "held" for the duration of the test. It could be a really neat experience for diverse learning media, but because most of the other teachers sit on the opposite side of the students and don't require ANYTHING to be done during the duration of the period, it's really uncool to be the only group of students with a teacher crazy enough to want to do something hands on, or even go outside and fly a kite (I only had 3 takers out of my class of 17 the last time we were in the gym... the rest wanted to stay inside and chill... did I mention it was 67', sunny, low humidity, and a perfect breeze... funny enough, I had 6 students from the other geometry class want to fly the kites, so why not, they came out with us). I'm going to introduce them to quilting this week. In the classroom, any classroom, not the gym. I'm getting to old to lug crap and leep bleachers, pretending the open gym circus of loose supervision is not the worst use of time and resources ever.

It's bed time. Here are some pictures. Oh sweet spring break, do not leave me now... twas not the lark you heard, but the nightengale...

At least I have some swell and swelling distractions, like the Bulls, the Blackhawks, and my awesome garden and fruit trees. I also made a friend with a big ol' frog tonight who was hanging in the garage. I relocated him to the back porch and fed him a huge beetle and a deerfly. I actually saw him eat the beetle. There was a soft crunching. But the little bugger reminded me of me, watching him eat something that was a third his own size like no one was watching.