It’s peaceful here.
Nick is golfing, Mollie moving into her new dorm/apartment. This may be the first time I’ve gotten to sit
quietly in my writing room since the kitchen and the rest of the house was put
back in order. I have my annual back to
school cold, but of course, that was expected.
It’s not too bad and I have this quiet weekend to get well and gather
strength for teaching next week.
I’ve spent the morning so far doing everything I could to
avoid writing. It’s strange for someone
who enjoys writing as much as I do – and I really do, to HATE getting started!! I’ll put it off forever (I even cleaned some
this morning), but once I start I can’t stop.
This will be a very rambling post.
I have many things to sort through in my mind and I’m just going with
the flow wherever it takes me. So this
may be broken up into several posts.
We’ll see.
I know a few of you (bless your hearts) worry when I seem
down or something. Please don’t. I’m fine, and that’s the truth. I’m striving for even better, but there is
nothing wrong. Just looking for
improvement.
I’ve just got the TTWD blues. I’m going to blame some of it on work. In order to keep my sanity at work I have to
adopt an ‘I don’t care attitude.’ I still want to clarify one thing – I do
care about my students, that they are happy, healthy, learning, growing and
feeling secure. I also care about my partner Megan and how she is doing, but
other that that, to all the things swirling around outside my room – I don’t
care.
Changing what I’ve taught for nearly a quarter of a century
– I don’t care.
Changing the calendar and start dates – I don’t care.
Being forced to take teaching advice from someone whose
total experience in teaching is four years as a High School PE teacher – I
don’t care.
One of my teaching partners being one of the few people I’ve
ever know that I really can’t get along with – I don’t care.
Being told repeatedly that how I teach is so totally old fashion and completely wrong and that no one could possible learn anything unless it’s
taught through a computer – I don’t care.
Well, I think you get the picture. I’m not saying this in a desperate, hateful
or even unhappy way. I’m not sad about
this feeling; it’s more like a cloak of serenity. As I see retirement on the horizon, I no
longer feel I need to spend time and energy tilting at windmills. I can smile
sweetly, nod in pretended agreement and then go in my classroom and teach the
young’un they give me the way I really feel is the best way to teach the subject at hand. I have indeed reached the point
when it takes more trouble and paperwork to fire me and to just leave me
alone. Especially since I’m not causing
anyone any trouble. When someone points
out that I’m not doing something the way they want it done I give them a sweet
smile and say, “Oh my goodness! I’m not?
Well I’ll certainly work on that.”
They go away happy and I continue to ignore everything that they
said. Problem solved, except…
I need that cloak of ‘I don’t care’ to survive the workplace
without becoming angry and frustrated, but it’s hard to throw it off when I get
home. So I find myself thinking:
I’m gaining weight again – I don’t care.
We rarely do TTWD anymore – I don’t care.
Nick and I aren’t as close as we were for a while – I don’t
care.
I haven’t posted in a while – I don’t care.
The problem is I DO
CARE ! I care about all these things,
but I can’t seem to bestir myself to do anything about any of them.
So I've been trying to find time to give it some serious thought. If you're interested in what is swirling around in my head come back and I'll see if I can get it down where is make any sense at all.
