April 13, 2010
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The Daily News1 Ah, so 'tis TUESDAY that is the true test!
2 It always comes back to Tuesday, doesn't it?
3 Dude, I SAILED through Monday yesterday. I had planned, run things, and studied everything I needed so that I could deliver expert lessons a'Mondee.
4 What worried me was TUESDAY.
5 Don't get me goin'.
6 I ALWAYS have issues with Tuesdays, to be honest with you.
7 Like I knew yesterday would work, because I had completely planned for it. I always do that after a break, especially the benevolent Spring Break.
8 But TUESDAYS...if you are REALLY smart, you should realize the rattlesnakesque tenor of Tuesdays. They lie in the weeds, and on a beautiful Spring day, when you feel that you've nothing left to do in April except to plan for May Day, they strike.
9 Whatever you THOUGHT you had together unravels. Your tongue begins to turn a strange sort of blue. Assholes come out of the woodwork and demand the results of things you told them you'd take care of three Mondays ago. They storm in, and tap their feet.
10 An eight-hour day becomes an effort in chains and whips. You find yourself in the sixteenth round of a hard punch that knocked you out in the fifteenth.
11 Yeah. Whew. Calming down now. A penguin with a crooked smile is waving a towel in my face, giving me air.
12 He speaks.
13 "Why don'tcha beat this day like ya done BEFAWH?"
14 I don't know.
15 For the life of me; I don't know.
16 I mean, I THINK I'm ready for it, but then I always THINK I'm ready for it. Before the break, my Bose sound system failed right when I was working with a CD of both Shakespeare plays. A BOSE fergawdsakes!
17 Yesterday morning I remembered that, and rigged up my computer to a guitar amp, so that the CD played nicely for the classes. It was only fifteen minutes, but it was enough to bridge the loss of memory that occurs in students each time they get a week off. It worked famously!
18 But fate always steps in. A student from last year came in and asked if her teacher could borrow my speakers because HERS was on the blink.
19 She forgot to take care of that over the vacation, so I said it would be okay, because I'm not using it today. I also told them that I used a guitar chord and amp to go out of the headphone jack using an adapter.
20 The student looked a little confused, but understood the technology.
21 She's coming in this morning to borrow that stuff.
22 Yep.
23 On a Tuesday.
24 Am I nervous?
25 No good deed goes unpunished.
26 Moving on, Part the First: The good news is that I'm pretty well prepared for this week, having graded nearly everything, having spent Sunday reviewing and refreshing what I'm going to do, and being inspired by the penguin.
27 I SEEM to have everything I need, but these things have a way of sneaking up. For example, I put my DVD's of Romeo and Juliet SOMEWHERE. We are working on the two most famous scenes from R & J AND Julius Caesar, the famous balcony scene, and the murder of Caesar respectively. I checked and found JC, but not R & J.
28 I put it somewhere where I wouldn't lose it.
29 Moving on, Part the Second: I no sooner finished uploading the picture above when the fonts on today's DN kept defaulting to a different, smaller font.
30 It isn't the end of the world but I have to butt each word right next to the previous word instead of just typing.
31 If that's the worst of my worries I have no worries.
32 Still...just a little annoyance.
33 Moving on, Part the Third: Found them. The Romeo and Juliet DVD's. Turns out I had never brought them to school. I forgot to bring them and had borrowed another teacher's two centuries ago when we were last in school.
34 I LOVE Spring Break, but it does tend to cause senility, or really, to augment senility. I saw a teacher yesterday standing next to her door, while the janitor fiddled with his keys. She had forgotten her school keys after Spring Break.
35 I'd LOVE to say that's never happened to me, but it did earlier this year, right after Thanksgiving.
36 THAT was on a Monday. I've gotten pretty good at Mondays.
37 Moving on, Part the Fourth: I went out and got this morning's edition of The Merc News and it had a picture of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, the one I have used over the years in the DN. The headline: Lighhouse's glory starts to dim. I always liked using pictures of that particular lighthouse because of it's strength and the feeling that it is protecting everything. Evidently it is in tremendous financial straits, and needs a lot of work, but there is no funding.
38 There was a beacon of hope in the article, so we'll see, but it was a sad article, to be sure, but ended with some hope.
39 Signs of the times.
40 Tuesday.
41 I'm feeling amazingly hopeful today. I've found the DVD's. The fonts suddenly started working properly again. The Giants and A's are a combined 12-3. The Sharks are in the playoffs and should kick some butt. And I'm just about organized and ready to get out of here and greet the Tuesday with strength and vision.
42 I do believe I owe it all to the penguin.
43 Have an amazing day.
44 Peace.
~H~
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