Last Friday, I ended the three-day work week feeling drained. How could that be? I just finished Christmas break. I think it's because the paper load generated from six classes of students has become depressing, like a gray cloud perpetually blocking the sun. I'm ashamed to be venting about a little nuisance like that, especially when I overhear the school custodian, who cheerfully sweeps the floors and empties the trash, say to other custodians how grateful he is to have his job when "lots of people getting laid off." Trying to stick to my vow about blowing off worries about work, I didn't do much on Saturday. I slept late, of course, wrote for my blog, did the weekly shopping at Wal-Mart, threw in a few laundries, cared for the needy animals who crave attention, watched some Law and Orders with P.
Slept late again Sunday, read the paper, and went over to the gym for my second work-out since joining the gym. I walked for 20 minutes on a treadmill, which was far more invigorating than walking the dog, who has to stop and thoroughly evaluate every poop throughout the neighborhood, thus slowing down my stride. I did another 10 on the bicycle, and tried a few arm weights. As the day passed by, I kept putting off doing any planning for the school week. My brain was just too tired. But by five o'clock, I couldn't ignore the fact that I had three 90-minute classes the next day to plan for. Let me tell you something, 90 minutes is a long time. The big push for all teachers these days is "bell to bell teaching." In other words, a teacher must fully engage the students somehow or other, for the full hour and a half. One activity to the next. No down time. No intermissions between activities. Bell-to-bell. And there's always some observer walking in to sit for 20 minutes and make sure that this is happening and that we're not lounging at our desks with our feet up. (Substitutes do this, but the regular teachers aren't allowed.) In fact, on Friday, the 9th person to observe me since September appeared during my first class, took notes, and then walked out, handing me the carbon of her form. (It was a good evaluation---the people outside the school give good ones, the in-house observers are the critical ones.) A student asked me, as the observer left the room, "Did you just get graded?" "Apparently," I replied.
But back to last night. I got down to business, determined to spend a minimal amount of time preparing for classes. But between the planning and the printing of all the handouts, the evening stretched out, and I missed my bedtime and stayed up too late. Then, an extremely rare occurence followed. I got into bed and couldn't sleep! That just doesn't happen to me. My usual thunderstorm tape brought the soothing sound of rain to my ears, but I just couldn't sleep. I had that strange sensation of never having slept at all, all night, even though I must have dozed here and there. At four o'clock, I was still awake. At five o'clock, I rolled out of bed, beating the 5:20 alarm. I felt wasted today, needless to say. And for the first time, I began to ponder whether there could be any other employment options out there, outside the field of teaching altogether, that I could pursue until retirement. What happened to the woman who was so excited about this job? Is it just a bad day? Or are these feeling symptomatic of major burn-out from the schedule, the administration, and the workload?
It would actually be much, much smarter for me to change my mindset than to change my career, at this point in life, unless I want to share catfood with Gus. Notice, though, that I took the time away from grading papers, etc. to write in my blog. See, I'm trying. I'm really, really trying to learn how to set limits.
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