It’s Been One of Those Weeks, You Know (A glimpse of life as a Middle School teacher)

It’s been one of those weeks, you know. It started on Monday before the crack of dawn, only, instead of getting ready for work, I’m hurling up everything I ate for the last 24 hours because the stomach flu always waits for that perfect moment to strike. You know, the one right after you just had the most delicious bowl of homemade, Mexican tortilla soup, so that it will take years before you can ever eat that again. Such a prankster, the flu. And then, when I go ahead and take on Tuesday, I try to wing it with my students in the library on the laptops with a program that I’ve only messed around with since last week, and, of course, nothing goes right, you know, but that doesn’t deter the librarian from deciding that I’m going to help her pitch the program to the staff on Thursday because, “It’s great,” she says, “But don’t tell the other teachers about all the glitches.”

I don’t even know where to begin with Wednesday. Should I mention the laryngitis, or the sinus infection, or the fact that both of my children were tossing their cookies all day thanks to that sneaky flu? Meh, I’ll just skip it and go straight to Thursday because, you know, that day was loaded with lots of fun. The staff room conversation includes the mutual understanding that we were all sensing a wild vibe among the students since they had come back from Christmas break, and then one of our newer, younger teachers on staff blurts out, “Well, I finally had the masturbator in class today! I knew someday it would come to this. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon in my career!” And, we all laugh because we’ve all been there and had to deal with that. We teach middle school, you know. So, some of us offer her advice, but no words of wisdom can ever replace the truth that comes with realizing that it’s never going to be okay to say, “All right, students, take out something to write on and something to write with, and pull your hand out of your pants, please.” But wouldn’t it make our jobs easier if we could every now and then, you know? And, we do our best to assure her that it might not ever happen again, but it doesn’t seem to help.

And then, later that day, I’m squeaking out my best, “Hurrah!” to the staff in the library on the laptops that no one can log onto to see half of the wonderful program that the librarian has just given a huge speech on because it’s glitchy, but I’m not allowed to mention that, you know. And, I go home and watch, “Misery,” because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as an older movie about a stalker fan of someone’s writing, and I still manage to stay on top of all of my Blogging101 assignments no matter how sick everybody is, you know, because I’m finally getting the hang of it. So, Friday is a really big deal to me because I’m hoping I’ll get some rest knowing that there’s a three day weekend coming. So, my brain decides to start celebrating around 3:00am, you know, and, even though I’m wide awake, I can’t do anything productive because I feel like crap, and I know I should’ve stayed home all week and recovered from everything, but I didn’t because I’m in denial, and, so Friday just keeps getting longer and longer, and then I get home.

So, I’m just hanging out on my blog at the moment because I always get insomnia and have a tendency to ramble on and on when I don’t get enough sleep, and now it’s officially Saturday. I really hate that, you know….