Sunday, January 3, 2010

reality NSF check

Tomorrow I am back in my classroom for the first time in 18 days.

I thoroughly enjoy nearly every part of my job (not in love with grading and alerting parents about failure); I am looking forward to seeing my students and my colleagues, and to settling in my new knickknacks & calendars (yes, plural); I am reasonably prepared to move forward with the last few weeks of the quarter. What I am not looking forward to is trying to rebalance my school life & home life after all these weeks spent completely out of whack.

Normally on weekends and during breaks I relish the time off but keep in mind that I must stick to a basic schedule of rising & eating & cleaning & planning and such so the return to school doesn't feel too unmanageable. But since I was physically unable to stick to any kind of schedule this time, I feel thoroughly disjointed. It's like I've been on a wild rollercoaster - a little jerky, a touch of nausea, but mostly enjoyable - and am walking onto the field as starting quarterback first thing in the morning. I like the game, love my fellow players, am excited about being on the team, but have not been to practice in 18 days.

I'm going for a Hail Mary and hoping for the best.