School break: Not a vacation.
Contrary to popular belief, teachers do not have school
vacation. Vacation carries with it the
understanding that one is paid. I am not
paid for the days I am not teaching.
That includes snow days, holidays, and the weeks' long summer
siesta. I am only paid for the days I am
actually in the classroom. Snow days are
made up at the end, taking days away from summer that are already owed to me.
I get paid for sick days, that's true, and I am allowed
three personal days. I cannot remember
the last time I took all my personal days, and the last time I took extended sick
time was when I had to have surgery to have my foot rebuilt. I would've been back to work after a couple
of weeks, except that the huge fiberglass cast on my right foot prevented me
from driving, and there was no one else to get me there. Though the surgery was necessary, I scheduled
it during breaks so that 25% of my time would be unpaid time. Honestly.
The surgery was first thing in the morning the day after Christmas. I've worked through pneumonia (except the
couple of days when I could not move or had a fever so high that I was a human
furnace), heel spurs, migraines, peri-menopause (you women know what I'm talking
about - try that without access to a bathroom except once every hour), and
bursitis in my hip.
Why am I telling you all this? It's not to make me look like a martyr. It's to give you some sound footing for what
I am about to tell you, and that is: Monday
morning is going to kick my ass.
I hate school breaks because I get into the habit of staying
up very late and getting a full seven to eight hours of sleep, a luxury I never
afford myself on school days. When
school is in session, I sleep anywhere from four to six hours a night, throwing
in an occasional seven hour sleep-through so I don't keel over at my desk in
front of the students. I spend most of
the days en pointe, constantly performing, attuned to the classroom, often
shifting gears faster than Michael Schumacher (he's retired, but still). At the end of the school day, I'm beat. By Friday evenings, I'm comatose.
Having school break is like having an entire week of
Saturdays. Nobody likes going directly
from Saturday to Monday. Nobody. But that's what's going to happen to me come
Sunday night. I am already anticipating
it; I'm already dreading it.
I set my alarm clock for 5:05. I do this for two reasons. The first reason is so I can watch the news
for about twenty minutes before I truly have to get my butt into gear. I immediately make the bed so I'm not tempted
to stay there, then I slog down the stairs and pretend the world is a wonderful
place to be in the cold, in the dark, on a weekday.
The second reason I set my alarm at 5:05 is so that the
alarm clock talks to me. Okay, it talks
to me anyway because the radio is my alarm.
I'm not one to set a buzzer so that I have heart failure every
morning. I set the clock for 5:05 so the
first thing I see when I wake up is SOS.
That's right. SOS. Help.
Help me. Oh dear lord, it's time
to get up for work. SOS. And it makes me laugh because it is
ironically funny. (I believe I have
mentioned this SOS penchant of mine before.
See, even my blog screams SOS.)
Since I have to get up anyway, I might as well have a sense
of humor about it. It's especially funny
after a long, unpaid break, a break in which I only get half of my to-do list
done. A break in which college lacrosse
unexpectedly starts early. A break in
which we have wind chills to cut through bone and home. A break in which I spontaneously join a
friend for lunch. A break in which a
cousin I never knew I had sets me into a family-tree journey of discovery that
I find addictively fascinating. A break
that starts and ends with snow storms.
A break that certainly isn't a vacation and is completely
devoid of routine.
Monday morning 5:05 cannot come soon enough. Bring on the routine; bring on the paycheck;
kick my ass back into gear. I'll be
ready … in about four more days.
