cute

Yesterday, I left my house at 7:15 am and got back after 9:15pm. This is my excuse for not blogging. I was at school for 11 hours. As I left at 6:30pm, I thought about a teacher told me that she calculated what she made per hour and it made her cry. I'm starting to understand.

This morning, I had to drive to a LA meeting. It took 20 minutes--all middle school teachers of the subject congregated to fill out a survey. Then, when I arrived at my school I got conned into going to another meeting about technology. None of the new teachers could log on to the program. (The tech person was txting other people and told us she'd come next week but she'd go ahead and show us what to do.) I'm a big fan of "presentations" that consist of a handout that the person reads aloud. WTF. After getting incensed, I excused myself and left. I'll soon find out if that kind of chutzpah is punishable; I'll just explain that the girl was wasting my time (and the school's time for that matter).

But, my afternoon meeting was cool. We painted African masks and worked with the technology with the text book. It was a fun and useful meeting. I was getting cynical about the possibility.

I don't like the 2 other grade level teachers that teach my subject matter. It's that simple. They're kind of whiney and silly (but not cool silly). I chatted over my disdain for the oafs with my spiritual director. Who better than a Benedictine to discuss living in community? He gave me some practical and philosophical advice. He told me not to let people and circumstances suck the goodness, joy and pleasure out of the quotidian. Philippians 4:9, isn't it? The PE teacher me the same thing as I quietly rolled my eyes with the incompetent tech.

Well, he said, "Cute, ain't it? There's going to be a lot of this. Might as well get used to it."

I'm getting excited and overwhelmed about the school year. I'm going to meet with N & C tonight for dinner. Yippee.