- Buying birthday cards for my sister who has been a humor writer for Hallmark longer than I can even remember. I should be buying her cards from Hallmark in support of my family, but what if I accidentally get her one that she wrote? Bummer. So then I resort to other card lines, and they just don’t compare, and all I can think is how disappointed she’ll be, and how stupid she’ll think the card I chose is. So I just don’t buy any for her. (Happy Belated Birthday, Tina!)
- When people ask, “So….what will you do all summer?” as if I haven’t spent the last almost-ten months educating teenagers in and out of the classroom. I can sure as hell tell you what I won’t be doing for inordinate amounts of time this summer: GRADING ESSAYS.
- People who respond to the above with: “Well, if you wouldn’t assign so many essays, you wouldn’t have to grade so many.” Please. Does that logic really work in the real world of education where we teach to standards that include—guess what?—writing, while we preach rigor and relevance? Oh, and p.s. I’m trying to prepare students for college, remember.
- Hallway noise of loud students, people, anyone laughing, yelling, etc. Or classroom noise of wrappers unwrapping, students eating or tapping their feet, and actually, any kind of noise bothers me, now that I think about it.
- When I’m writing on the board with a brand new piece of chalk, and it breaks. Yeah, I know. You’re wondering who writes on chalkboards anymore.
- Just because I teach seniors, and just because they are done three days before the other students are, does not mean that I sit in my room playing games on my phone, peeling grapes and cutting the crusts off my sandwiches, all while meal planning for the next two and a half months and watching Ricky Martin videos on YouTube. I have essays to grade—see above, I have senior grades to turn in, and I’m also involved in plenty of other school related activities in which I can get caught up on work. (Pause here to say that I have agreed to help Natalie coach the LHS Drill Team this next year as a transition into her own coaching, and in addition to that, guess who was just named the president of the board of trustees for the Mohican Historical Society? Moi. A position that I fill as an educator, for sure.) Anyway, if all of that is finished, I also like to volunteer my help in the high school office, fill-in for absent teachers, or hey, research for possible grants, read potential literature for next year’s syllabus, or maybe even do some lesson planning. I am not a slacker.
Okay, phew. I feel better. Sorry for the snark, and thanks for letting me vent.
Aimee Ross 