Bag Packing Event

Last night I woke up at 1:36 all grumpy and uncomfortable.  Like I was disappointed to see that it was only 1:36 because I was ready to be done with this sleeping thing.  So I did a mental check of my fluids and temperature, rolled out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen for a glass of water.  It wasn't until I was standing at the open fridge, gulping at my glass by the light of the microwave clock that I realized why I was in a bad mood.  I had been having a dream about school.

To be clear, it isn't the very thought of school that sends me into a funk.  I really don't dislike the job that much.  Really.  It's these terribly mundane dreams I have about the school day! To the best of my memory, last night's dream contained a 54 minute lesson in which I struggled to get my 7th period class to stop talking to each other about whether Q was on drugs and instead focus on their work.  Which is exactly what I did from 1:14-2:10 of my waking Friday.  And while it wasn't terrible, it really didn't bear repeating.  I believe the dream then continued to include a slowed down packing-up-my-bag event.  That's right, in my dream I had trouble packing up my bag at the end of my school day, and so I had to do some rearranging that induced a low grade frustration connected to my eagerness to be done with work for the day, rather than standing at my desk trying to make all of my folders fit in my shoulder bag. This seemed to last for 45 minutes.  (In real life, I'm way better at making my stuff fit in my bag.)

So you see?  I'm cuddled warm in my soft bed on a Friday night, all the time in the world to sleep, and I'm dreaming in such a manner as to deprive my unconscious mind the ability to enjoy the time away from the classroom.  It's self inflicted!  And it's not even exciting stuff, like a fight in the lunchroom or a slow motion montage of me getting kids who hate teachers and hate school to read books and write poetry.  You know what would be great?  If instead of the 45 minute bag packing event, I could have a dream that featured me in front of the class, handing out hilarious jokes and bathing in raucous and delighted laughter.

Anyway, the glass of water and the bathroom visit helped my bad mood, and in the end I did feel grateful that it was still the middle of the night and I could climb back into bed.  I gave my unconscious mind a stern look before I fell back asleep, to try to discourage this behavior in the future.

One of the things I'm having trouble coming to terms with is the feeling as if this profession has stuck me forever in high school. When I was in high school I wanted to get the f out. I distinctly remember, though I repress it on an almost daily basis, looking at one of my younger english teachers as a sophomore student and thinking: She seems cool, but nobody who was actually cool would choose to be a teacher- to stay in school forever.

So how is it that I am slouched at my computer checking weather.com compulsively and pretending I don't think there is any chance we could get a snow day tomorrow? At least when I was 16 and slouched at my computer I had the comfort of feeling superior to my sucker teachers.

To further complicate my baseless sense of annoyance at myself, my students, simply by mirroring my own inclinations, are annoying the crap out of me too. Today a student in my fourth period class raised her hand and asked me if we will have off tomorrow. Not even did I THINK we will have off tomorrow. Will we. "We will," I nodded at her. Twenty six pairs of eyes widened in unison. "WE ARE???"

We aren't. We won't. But Ms. Smalley will be sleeping restlessly tonight anyway, having little dreams about automated phone calls from the district office.

Its a good place to start to say that I spent most of my Study Hall duty creating this blog instead of grading assignments, planning lessons or even posting attendence. My total inability to use my prep periods for anything constructive is only one of the unfortunate realities of this teaching gig. I've made great strides since September, where I mainly passed the 54 minutes of prep or hall duty staring at a blank space in my own vision and panting. "You're ok, you're ok."

Now I'm funtioning at a level high enough to feel the itch to do some egocentric, indulgent story telling. Signs of life.

But not now. Suddenly the thirty-five minutes of Blogger time seem horrifyingly irresponsible- back to work. Consider the blog begun.