Rewarding work

Woohooooo!! We did it! We pulled off an excellent production—if I do say so myself ;) —and even sold out our final show. The kids, both cast and crew gave their very best to make this show a success. I couldn’t be more proud or more tired. I am truly exhausted. Like the kind of tired you need forty-eight hours of bed rest to come back from.

Unfortunately, I am finding out that the life of a teacher doesn’t afford such things. You work like crazy during tech week—class at 8:00 a.m. and rehearsals until 9:00 p.m. —then you finally get to the show, which really just means spending all weekend at your job. You have to get there before call time to open the building, vacuum the carpets, and check the props. Then you have to wait until every last kid has been picked up and accounted for to leave after the show. And come Monday morning you better be right back at school, teaching class at 8:00 a.m.

And this week is no picnic either. I’m getting observed by my graduate advisor, the pom team has a halftime performance, and both the dance and pom teams are busy getting ready for the Christmas concert on Friday. Not to mention this week is my birthday, my wedding anniversary, and somewhere in there I still need to find time to grade and attend my own grad classes. Whew!! This teaching stuff is hard!

If I can just push through to winter break life will be good, but I have to cast the next show before then and write my first exam. Anybody got a magic recipe for more hours in the day? Because I sure could use it!

Some moments I just have to lay my head down on my desk and breathe deeply. I have the full cast photo from our show sitting right at the edge of my cluttered workspace and as I sit awkwardly with my cheek on a pad of paper it is nice to look at it and feel a great sense of satisfaction. Well, sleepiness and satisfaction.