Yep. That's my schedule. Teaching 38 classes a week, 4 of them doubled up (so really it's 42), and all five of my library management periods taken away. Helluva way to start the school year. Well, for now I will deal with it. For now. If anything, this sort of impossible schedule will require that I finally set my limits and boundaries with people--no more staying late, no more working through lunch, no more "I want this book right now no matter what you are in the middle of doing." Okay.
In the meantime, with a variety of difficult issues going on in my life, I'm feeling surprisingly grateful at times. Grateful for my health, my daughter, for my resilience, for my career, for my financial independence, for the little things people do to make me feel better...thank you Sara, Debra and Maggie for being there at the right time at my yard sale yesterday, thank you Rikki for calling me tonight to lend support, thank you Allison for helping me organize the other day, Jessica for offering to help me pack stuff when the time comes, Ariel and Enid for being the friends I can talk to about anything, my mom for supplying those regular Starbucks espresso shots, my dad for teaching me how to sell books, all those people who saw how special my jewelry was and bought it yesterday, Aliyana for our day at the beach, Connell for helping me mow the lawn, Heidi for creating such a wonderful vacation spot in Annapolis, Phil for letting me complete his class even though I missed the first day after getting dehydrated, Theo for being my blogger conscience, Gyuri for making me laugh when he misspelled the word atheist and hoping that my visit to Hungary would not just be for a weekend, Brian for making me look forward to the Renaissance festival, Barbara for offering after-school work at the yeshiva, Ruth for offering to volunteer at my library, Yvette for finding my cell phone which she lost two weeks ago, Simone and Larry for a fun road trip to the wedding last month, Elisheva for helping me de-stress and for her beautiful accent, Howard still being "uncle" to Yvette...
It helps to list all these people I am grateful to, and appreciate me. It's important, knowing that I begin a new school year at a place and with people who do not appreciate me or what I do in any way, or if they do, don't have the power, time or creativity to improve conditions.
Good luck, me, Hellibrarian.
5 comments:
Good to hear from you, friend. Keep writing, every now and then.
38 classes; that's a lot. How often do you see them? Every week?
I see each class for a forty-minute period once a week. For the little ones that's sufficient, but it is not enough to teach grade 3 to 5 research skills and collaborate with their teachers on projects. Simply put, I'm spread too thin to have much effect.
Holly for visiting you and offering to carpool when you've been up all night.... ;o)
Yes, definitely! With all we have to deal with in our district, it is quite a blessing that we moved across the street from each other at the same time!
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