| Tuesday February 27, 2007 The Daily News
1 So in keeping with what I was saying in yesterday's DN, I'm writing this piece this past Friday, even though today is Tuesday. Make sense?
2 The reason I'm writing it last Friday is that I CAN. I have time because the teaching profession is a bigger racket than my neighbor's party last night.
3 Well, of course every teacher around will take huffy offense. But we do get LOTS of time off. The argument on that one is that we also put in a LOT of hours. Quite true.
4 That's why it's a good racket. We work so hard some days that many of us go borderline psycho. We take it home. Grading one set of papers could take up to five hours after work. There's LOTS of bookwork, as well as the emotional factor of dealing with human beings' lives on a daily basis.
5 Especially young human beings, who can become explosively goofy in a tidbit.
6 But the grand reality is that most teachers work fewer than 190 days a year.
7 And we absolutely love and need that time, mainly to catch up with the other 150 days of work we still have to do, but also to keep us from making a mad dash to the loony bin.
8 We also value our time. Seriously, we could physically work at the school for seven hours, but we definitely drag our professions around with us. For many, our cars are our second offices. Some will physically stay at the "plant" until past 8 or even 9 at night. We'll ignore any work on Saturday and maybe re-aquaint with our families, and then we will usually go psycho somewhere around 2 p.m. on a Sunday, just thinking of all the stuff we have to plan out.
9 Trust me, I'm not complaining. Remember, this is being written on a Friday morning when the sun is bathing our sleeping dog in the sunroom, and the dishwasher is whirring atop an ocean wave of sounds coming out of a talk show on KGO. There is a slight breeze moving gently across the tips of the grass, while puffy clouds move dreamily across the morning sky. 10 By Tuesday, which is today, I"ll be a basket case. We have some committee which I musingly refer to as the WPC coming in and examining our entire school for four straight days, beginning this past Sunday at 5 p.m.
11 Who are the WPC? Glad you asked. I always give Brownie points to students who ask that question.
12 White People with Clipboards.
13 Every now and again the state sends a posse, just to get the entire place wound up tighter than a Swiss watch. Coyote grins and sweat chatter down the sides of our faces as we chitter and chatter to these people hoping they will move to the next room.
14 If you're lucky, this particular brand of WPC might not return for six years. They are THE major wing of the WPC, so it's a very big deal.
15 They are identifiable by three distinctive characteristics:
- They're white, by and large.
- The have clipboards
- They wear their glasses down on their noses and look over the tops of the lenses, poker-faced.
16 Pretty nerve-wracking.
17 And they're not stupid, lemme tellya.
18 That's why I decided to write this last Friday. In a funny sort of way, I was asked to go on a field trip today, so I probably won't even see 'em. Some teacher or other scheduled a field trip and then couldn't seem to go. So I'm the guy. Sometimes I feel like a suitcase.
19 Well, tomorrow night I'm flying outta here to a convention in Sandyeggo. I'm going with Rocha. Research, it is said, don't come cheap. They're sending in the big boys to see just what it is we are supposed to be doing. We are the very best. Godspeed to us, and to all of you. We are the modern equivalent of the Templars. Trust me.
20 Plus that's two more DN's you won't be getting, but I promise to return triumphantly. More on that tomorrow.
21 For now, I'd better duck outta here before someone from the WPC finds this place and writes about it.
22 It would absolutely force the DN underground. I would probably still be able to hammer messages to you from Marseilles. Fear not. The DN shall always ring out for Freedom.
23 I better go. I'm starting to feel like Victor Lazlow.
24 We'll meet again.
25 Tomorrow then.
26 Peace.
~H~
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9 Trust me, I'm not complaining. Remember, this is being written on a Friday morning when the sun is bathing our sleeping dog in the sunroom, and the dishwasher is whirring atop an ocean wave of sounds coming out of a talk show on KGO. There is a slight breeze moving gently across the tips of the grass, while puffy clouds move dreamily across the morning sky.10 By Tuesday, which is today, I"ll be a basket case. We have some committee which I musingly refer to as the WPC coming in and examining our entire school for four straight days, beginning this past Sunday at 5 p.m.
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