Nose back to the grindstone. Alas, Spring Break is dead but, just for a moment, long live Spring Break!
I thought I'd give you a recap on what went down when nobody else was around.
It really was a busy, busy week this week. If I wasn't raiding refrigerators, then I was diving for golf balls in the lap pool (trust me, it's fun). But the most exciting thing was that floor cleaning / zamboni looking thing. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. You always see the custodial staff riding them around the cafeteria or the hallways late at night or early in the morning (having all the fun while you are mulling over lectures, lesson plans, and grading).
Well, score one for the teachers. I hopped on that thing and had a field day all week. The best thing about that thing is it's speed. No it isn't fast, but slow. It moves like the freakin' Pope mobile. I'll admit it--I lined up the trophies from the trophy cases and did a little parade through the main hallway.
I imagined all my co-workers and colleagues lined up with their students along the hallway, classes interrupted, all out to have a parade in honor of little ol' me. You see, usually I have to take my classes out there in that hallway and wave and clap for the debate team or the football team or the polo team or some team that won some state title. Don't get me wrong. I love celebrating every single state title we win here at SLHS but, quite frankly, it's about time someone gave me a standing ovation, gosh darnit.
Of course, I spent the weekend finding a way into the security office.
I have a week's worth of video in my briefcase if anyone wants to do some Spring Break reminiscing.
Books--they're so precious to teachers. We use our breaks to catch up on a year's worth of reading. We are free, free, free! We are free from the fifteen hour work days. We are free from exhaustion and we are free from grading. Well, during Spring Break we do have grading to do, but we just don't do it.
Spring Break is the time where I can go into the school's library and build a fort out of books and magazines (I call if Ft. Read-o-Sabe). And, of course, there isn't a librarian to kick me out. It's pathetic. I'm so behind in my reading. Did you know that Harry Hamlin is People's "World's Sexiest Man"?
I do have to be careful not to slip into some kind of reading coma. Can you imagine Principal Pécan coming in here on Monday to find me is some kind of reading coma? I'd be sprawled out with Camu and Larry McMurtry clinched in my fists--drool seeping from my mouth--murmuring lines from books:
"I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up."
"I am always drawn back to the places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods."
"It was love at first sight."
"George is my name; my deeds have been heard of in Tower Hall, and my childhood has been chronicled in the Journal of Experimental Psychology."
"All this happened, more or less."
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
"Call me Jonah."
"Boys are playing basketball around a telephone pole with a blackboard bolted to it."
"Men emerge pale from the little printing plant at four sharp, ghosts for an instant, blinking, until the outdoor light overcomes the look of constant indoor light clinging to them."
"This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."
The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, the students are locked in the throes of... well... something, and the smell from the dumpster is beginning to ripen.
It can mean only one thing. That's right. Spring Break is upon us and not a moment too soon.
Not that I don't love having the students around (and the administrators, of course), but it'll be nice to have the place to myself for a week. I've got the run of the house, or school, or... whatever.
Spring Break is really, truly liberating. I feel like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, minus the fancy underwear and Rebecca De Mornay as the hooker with the heart of gold. I don't plan on sliding through the hallways and singing into a chalkboard eraser or anything but, hey, you never know. Anything goes on Spring Break.
Just think about it. The cafeteria's unmanned, the dumpsters are wide open for perusal, the gym's shower facilities have no pesky coaches roaming around, yelling randomly into the steam, "Hey you! You don't have gym this period! Get outta' here!." It's a Hobo Teacher paradise. The only thing that would make it better would be if I had the keys to Driver's Ed car.
The only thing I really have to worry about is the occasional, uncomfortable, run-in with confused custodial staffer or maintenance person.
You see, my underwear isn't as nice as Tom Cruise's.
I apologize to those that need an HT fix at work and can't get it. I myself tried to access the site from school because I had an experience that needed to be recorded immediately--too funny. Anyway, the Springwood Lakes' web-filtering software wouldn't let me through. It classified me as an "adult" site! It also said Tinky-Winky was gay and that I couldn't go swimming 30 minutes after eating.
Well, at least it said one of those things.
Maybe I should comply and go X-rated. You must be at least 18 to enter--any money exchanged is for time and time only and what we do with our time is between consenting Hobo Teachers.
The workroom just got a new refrigerator, which paid off twice. First, the old fridge had to be cleaned out. Darn right there was a volunteer to take care of that. Second, what to do with the box that the fridge came in?
Of course I was willing to help out the custodial staff with that little chore.
You know the saying: "One man's empty refrigerator box is another's guest bedroom."
I'm thinking of joining a gym--one of those 24 hour jobs. There's one down the street from the school and it's nice. At least it seems nice by the garbage its cafe throws out.
It has a freakin' cafe!
I'll bet there are leather couches big enough to sleep on and nice, hot showers. I bet they even have washing machines tough enough for my stains.
I must admit that it would be nice to spend all my time there instead of at school. No one is that dedicated.
How long do you think that the average human being could live off of free samples of "UltraCarbo"?
At least they don't kick me in the shins when they say it.
Things have been kind of hectic with research papers lately and kids from classes have been coming in before and after school for extra help. It's strange, yet neat to see my classes mix. I get so accustomed to seeing only certain groups all the time. The same assortment. I know it doesn't work this way, but we trick the mind that they stay in the same packs all day, never to see one another.
Like this afternoon I had a 7th perioder and a 3rd perioder meet in my room, both working on their research paper. They get so much more animated, like a bond is made through the new knowledge that they both have to endure me every day. Also their guards tend to drop in their new found intensity.
"What are you doin', after this?"
"Oh my God--I have to go to freakin' History for freakin' tutoring."
"Who do you have?"
"Phillips--he's so freakin' hard."
"I've got Austin. I love her. She's the best teacher ever."
Ouch kids, I'm in the room. Hobo Teachers have feelings too.
I realize I'm a far cry from "the best teacher ever," but what if I just went down the rows in class and said, "stink, cheats, sucks up for grades, just plain dumb, picks his nose, doesn't shower after gym, has crush on nose picker," putting frankness before politeness?
I'll save that for what I like to call, "Last Straw Day."
"Can we watch Napoleon Dynamite instead of reading The Great Gatsby today?"
"Well Stephen, it's interesting to compare Napoleon's yearning for tots to Gatsby's self-destructive tendencies found in his pursuit of Dai--NO WE CAN'T WATCH NAPOLEON DYNAMITE! THIS IS ENGLISH TIME AND NOT MOVIE TIME."
They'll memorize every line to Old School, but will they even pick up the Cliff Notes to Crime and Punishment?
Plus, the only time they'll get literary is when they are trying to get me to let them bring in a tape of last night's The OC.
"If you think about it Sir, the lesbian storyline closely parallels the very same one found in The Color Purple."
"You read The Color Purple?"
"They made a book out of a movie, Sir? That's weird. It's usually the other way around."
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. That's our story and we're sticking to it.
