Holidays and Afternoons-off

I spent the last week trying to come up with a witty--verging on cutting--response for the next person who tells me how lucky teachers are to have holidays and afternoons off. I wouldn't mind this so much if the tone of the speaker didn't almost always imply that, really, teachers have it easy. How unfair it is that all the rest of the world has to slave away 8 to 4 or 9 to 5 while teachers (and honestly, how hard is it to qualify as a teacher?) get to lounge the day away after lunch and get whole weeks off at a time!

I did not come up with any fittingly biting responses because I was too busy spending my afternoons, evenings, early mornings, late nights and weekend marking, prepping and writing reports.

Two weekends ago I had 14 different sets of marking to do on my list. About 3 of those were small sets of less than 5 pieces each but the rest were all full-class marking sets. This weekend I only had 12. And this is before grades and report writing. Not to mention the recycled fashion show I am helping to plan and run with the Environment club, the book drive with the Volunteer club, or the hostel I'm supposed to be running.

I often feel bad and that I should apologise when someone points out the extra time off awarded to those of my particular career and I usually mumble quickly, "Yes, it's great, we are lucky, shame poor you, you hard-working lawyer/doctor/receptionist/banker/waitress," shame-faced and full of sympathy for their terrible, cruel situation and guilt at my light, happy, carefree one. And I wish I had a ready retort that was punchy, to the point, and perfectly explained how, yes, the holidays are wonderful, but a large part of them is spent preparing and marking, reading for the next course, getting over the flu that hit you as soon as school closed because the final weeks were too much for your body, and how, in those final weeks, teachers walk around like zombies, grunting to each other over papers and books and computers, trying to teach students in between, pushing and pushing, until the end, and then, the end is not really an end but the time to pick up the pieces that you couldn't pick up throughout the term because there were 14 or 12 more important things to do...

But I don't--have a clever retort, that is. And I don't think I ever will.

Because I don't think any amount of explanation of what it really takes out of you to teach (and I haven't even mentioned what happens when you venture beyond the surface level of teaching and into...oh my, say, relationships?) would really, truly be understood by someone who wasn't a teacher.

So, yes, I am lucky to have my holidays and apologise for them to everyone else.

Forced writing: water

I love to write and am thoroughly enjoying this blog so far. I have to admit though, I do need the enforced stipulation of a post a week (no one work out how many times I have just missed that deadline). I think because I pour myself into whatever present I happen to be part of (right now, teaching, marking, counselling, being part of family) I struggle to do things that I know are important and that I know would fulfill me and add to my general well-being. Things such as communicating with people from the past (or just siblings!), staying on top of the news, reading good, non-teaching books, and writing. So, this forced blog has been wonderful and I've enjoyed it, but I know I would not have written past blog no. 4 if I had not publicly said that I would post once a week at the beginning. Such is my present living (or time management, or self-control, or long term commitment abilities).

In a weird but pretty cool coincidence, I was invited this term to join a writing group that the friend of a work-mate friend was starting. We've met once and we're all pretty clueless about what a writing group is supposed to be so the atmosphere is fairly relaxed and forgiving. Two of us are teachers, one of us is a serious writer trying to publish, another has a degree in fine arts and we meet every two weeks. I'm loving being accountable to write creatively again (the last time being high school). I go through spurts of private poetry writing but having to write something every two weeks is going to be good, I think. We're meeting for the third time this week... I haven't written about "brown" yet... but I need to by Tuesday night, so I will. And that is good, even if it happens on Tuesday evening!

Below is my first writing group contribution. It's rough... but I enjoyed it and I find I am feeling its sentiments a lot more at the moment than when I first wrote it. Funny how writing is like that, hey?

Water Want

I want to feel the rain on my face

and in between my desperately spread fingers,

to dance in the drops that beat firm and true

on my head

in my mouth

and slip into the places of myself that I have hidden away.

I want to splash and stamp in the rivers

beside blaring, cursing roads

to twirl and laugh in the torrents

while cars drive blind and blank with their windows up.

I want to stand, solemn and silent and wide-eyed with awe

on the edge of a pier

while all around waves crash and roar

oblivious and terrifying in their power.

I want to lie and be rocked

by a kind, gentle sea

back and

forth and

up and

down and

back again.

But I cannot.

Because there is no rain and so there can be no dance,

And the streets are full of rubbish and the rivers do not flow,

And the pier is crumbling and full of dangerous slats,

And the sea

--oh the sea--

the sea is just so far.