Apples and Icons

I am tired.  I am physically exhausted, yes.  I believe the technical, physiological term for what I am experiencing would be “pooped.”  I am also tired of being in that 1936-era school building.  I mean I am SICK of it.  Of the last 48 hours, I have spent nearly 26 of them in that building.  The superintendent said I should consider renting an apartment near the school and/or set up a bed on-premises. I’m leaning towards silver Airstream parked on the playground.

Here’s the answer to the question you are asking me via telepathy.  (Yes, I can hear your brain asking me if I have lost mine…) The reason I have spent so much time at school in the last two days beyond my usual hours of teaching, is because I also served a turn as a teacher representative at the school board meeting Monday night.  The meeting doesn’t even begin until eight.  I stayed after school, instead of going home, to prepare for my trip on Thursday (more on that in a New York minute).  By the time the meeting had adjourned and I had doodled on every scrap of paper within my reach, it was 9:30. 

Yesterday I stayed late in order to prepare for my substitute teacher that will be filling in for me for the latter part of this week.  What a pain in the butt it is to get things ready for the sub!  It is much like hiring a maid and then cleaning the house before she arrives.  And it does not help that my sub is the teacher that filled this very room with her presence for thirty-nine years.  She is as much an iconic part of this school and community as is the town “hall” where countless celebrations have been held commemorating weddings, anniversaries, graduations, and any other gathering that has been held and needed spaciousness.  It also doubles as the town movie theater, complete with church pew benches for seating.

OK!  You drug it out of me.  I am intimidated by her legend.  She taught multiple generations to read, write, and do ‘rithmatic.  She IS the face of first grade around here.  So when she steps into my borderline cluttered, endearingly chaotic classroom, I have visions of her clucking her tongue and thinking,”Uffda! (a Norwegian utterance), I should have never retired.”

But she did, and the school board was fool enough to hire a middle-aged, quasi-hippie to replace her, so I will just have to hold my head high and risk her stringent evaluation.  You understand my stress at preparing for her arrival though, I hope.  She knows her stuff.  I do not yet.  Oh, I think I know as much as the average brand-spankin’ new teacher, but the proof is in the puddin,’ as they say.  Only time will prove whether or not I am a truly effective instructor.

I want her to walk in tomorrow and find neat, organized stacks of curriculum manuals, activity sheets, and art supplies for the paper bag reindeer and tongue depressor Santas.  That is my fantasy anyway.  I suspect today’s busy schedule will leave me walking out the door at the end of this day saying to myself, “She’ll figure it out…”

So where am I going, you ask?? (I am so glad you asked…)

My hubbie and I are climbing on board a plane tomorrow morning and heading east to take a bite out of the Big Apple (sort of ironic for a teacher to be headed to an apple).  We have dreamed about and discussed spending time in New York City at Christmas time for several years.  We made tentative plans to do so last year to celebrate my finishing my degree.  But then I had a few courses to finish up over Christmas break, I got hired (yay!), and it just was not feasible to run away when so much stress hung heavy on my shoulders.

Mr. Dahl brought it up again this fall.  Race ‘ya!  And so we began planning, scheming, and buying tickets online.  Our itinerary is jam-packed.  Phantom of the Opera one night.  Radio City Music Hall another.  Then there are all the iconic NYC experiences that will somehow find their way into our overloaded schedule.  Ellis Island, Empire State building, Metropolitan Museum of Art, hot dogs off on of those shiny carts, and on and on.  We are STOKED. 

But before I settle into my plane seat, pull out my paperback and finally draw a deep, cleansing breath, I have papers to grade and art projects to finish, and a perfectly perfect retired teacher to get ready for. 

I am ready for a break.  But resting will have to wait another day.

Right now I need coffee and in internal pep talk.

(Serenity now….)