The Daily News
1 Whoops!
2 I made the fatal mistake of being lured into a false sense of security yesterday.
3 I somehow survived TWO meetings.
4 Evidently, the last meetings during the Christmas season seem to be bereft of issues.
5 Hmmmm.
6 Both seemed to me to be relatively short and issueless.
7 Evidently Seasons' Greetings can make their way into areas of life that are usually construed as essential.
8 Suddenly the people in charge of causing stress realize that THEY need a break.
9 Well all fine and cool, I suppose.
10 Two meetings, and I emerged relatively unscathed.
11 The trouble with dodging two bullets in the same day is that one gets lured into a false sense of security.
12 The world then stealthily moves in.
13 Last night I had the audacity to relax and not think about things too deeply. The meetings were short and relatively unstressful.
14 I ate healthily and then went to bed quite early.
15 I put the entire world on hold.
16 <basketball buzzer>
17 I enjoyed a marvelously serene sleep, and woke up to now.
18 In my peace, the DN was already written.
19 In my reality, I am now awake and facing certain doom.
20 Yesterday was TOO good a day.
21 We had a minimum day so as to make time for the critical meetings.
22 Here's a bit of advice: Never volunteer for anything.
23 Just kidding.
24 Sort of.
25 Certain doom.
26 Yesterday I worked a ten hour day, and that doesn't include the terror of traveling on the roads with all the idiots.
27 Today I will work a 14-hour day, because I am going to do a relatively simple light design for our winter concert, which I was told last night by our guitar teacher, will be lonnnnnnnng.
28 I don't really mind, because I have always loved school concerts.
29 It's just the fourth in a continuum of long hours, long weeks, and extremely stressful weekends.
30 I simply don't have the hours.
31 I'm writing this in haste because I had to throw up my arms last night and crash early.
32 But I'm awake now, for the count.
33 Yesterday I didn't stop. I lectured every single period, had around five seconds to ponder, and then had meetings until I went home, somehow assembled a brief shopping trip, somehow got some food down, and crashed.
34 I'm still standing.
35 I'm at the end of my rope, but dude.
36 I can't keep working sixty to seventy-hour weeks.
37 I'm staring down a Thursday filled with lectures and papers.
38 As we speak.
39 I love it.
40 I hate it.
41 That conversation took place between me and our yearbook advisor last night at yet another meeting.
42 We stood red-eyed and exhausted afterward, but we both insisted that we are in the greatest profession in the world.
43 In many ways, it is true.
44 It is also one of the most exhausting professions on the planet, and nobody on the planet, even other teachers, gets it.
45 I'm awake.
46 Like you, I have a thousand issues surrounding me.
47 I have little time to deal with them because I must commit myself to teaching.
48 If you are a teacher, you get it. You have to engage students into learning every single day of the school year.
49 You can't call in sick for a hangnail.
50 You lose a day, you give yourself three days more of work.
51 You have always to be upbeat and on it.
52 I made the mistake yesterday of thinking I could actually relax.
53 I crashed early and am now facing chaos if I don't spend the early part of the day scrambling for a dynamic lesson plan.
54 I will succeed.
55 I always do.
56 I will survive.
57 But right now I am hustling. I am staring down the gun barrel of a fourteen-hour day.
58 I will love my life at around ten p.m. when I arrive home after the Winter Concert.
59 That's what we do.
60 A cop is a cop. A lawyer is a lawyer. A gardener is a gardener.
61 You are you. Nobody on the planet gets what you go through each day.
62 And they never will.
63 I'm just bitching about my own world here. All apologies.
64 I appreciate that you give your all to your own job.
65 I am just exhausted. Jobs do that. All jobs do that. This includes motherhood, by the way. That just may be the toughest job on the planet. But I digress.
66 I have to stop now and get ready to go in.
67 I hope to have a great day despite all.
68 You have a great day too.
69 Thank you for all you do, and I know you all do a lot. I'm just scramblin' today. Hope your day works out well. I gottago.
70 Peace.
~H~
www.xanga.com/bharrington 
The Daily News1 Whoops!2 I made the fatal mistake of being lured into a false sense of security yesterday.3 I somehow survived TWO meetings.4 Evidently, the last meetings during the Christmas season seem to be bereft of issues.
