I don't have much to say about the anniversary of nine eleven. Mary Lou is subbing right now for a teacher who had surgery. She came by today to tell me she will always remember that I'm the one who told her about the planes.
Today is Hannah's fifteenth birthday. A big one, it seems. I was in labor 22 hours with her. From 9:00 on the night of the 10th until 7:30 on the night of the 11th. She was two days past her due date. We'd had several fire drills at school the day before. I remember waddling out to that playground over and over, herding the children to our assigned spot. Mr. Carr would come out with the bullhorn and announce that we had to try again and get it faster. Finally, after the third time, he remembered my condition and announced that my class could sit the rest of them out. I was sure thankful. It was way too hot, and I was way too big.
I got an e-mail from Miles today. He sent me a link to a letter of his that is published in tomorrow's edition of The Guardian. He wants my thoughts on it. I'm not sure I have any--don't know much about foraging, really. (Here's the letter: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1870043,00.html). When I read The Poisonwood Bible I was struck by the way keeping food on the table consumed their entire day. Not to whine or anything, but truly that is the way it was here for at least a week after Katrina. A grocery store opened in Seminary six days after the storm, but there was nothing on the shelves. By then, we'd lost everything in the freezer and the refrigerators. I don't want to sound as if I'm complaining. I am not. We had food, for which I am eternally grateful. What I'm saying is that getting those meals on the table consumed my days. I am pretty certain I cooked some bad chicken around Friday of the first week, and I was praying hard the whole time we were eating that meal that we wouldn't get sick from it.
This year is killing me. I am taking good care of myself out of absolute necessity. I am eating right and back on a regular exercise program. It occurs to me as I am sitting here typing that what I desperately need is a support group. I need some people to tell me I can do this. Maybe some of the SMWP bunch can start blogging about our school days on the SMWP blog site? Anybody else having a bad year? Anybody want to blog with me about it?
1 comment:
I'm struggling this year too. I won't go so far as to say I hate it, but I'm sure as hell not enjoying it. And because I'm expending so much energy on teaching, I'm not getting any work on my dissertation done. I was thinking that next weekend I'd take Friday off and point Esteban north to the Land Between the Lakes for a weekend of camping, but then I remembered that it's Start Write. *sigh*
I've emailed a friend who is the curriculum director at a school in Rio, Brasil. She offered me a job earlier this summer. If it's still open, I'm seriously considering moving next summer. I'm tired...and if I'm gonna be tired, I may as well be tired in Brasil.
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