It's FRIDAY...

I love Fridays. :)

End of the week. For me, it means I get two days of NOT waking up at 5:30 (or earlier) every morning. Two whole days of NOT eating a proper breakfast when I hate to eat after I've just awoken. And best of all, one whole day relatively free of scrambling around to get lessons for my kiddies.

I do like teaching (I think I mentioned that before). If I didn't, I certainly wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing now--teaching six different subjects a day. For those of you not in the education field, that means six different lesson preps, six different sets of notes and activities, six different sets of tests to grade... SIX. Count'em. And while I'm at it, let me just say that the average teacher in the average public school only teaches about 3-4 subjects at one time. Leave it to me to be an overachiever, right?

Six subjects is hard, especially as a first year teacher. Especially coming in half way through the school year (I got this job in January). Basically, that means I don't have any notes saved up from previous years, no cute activity ideas--it's just me and the teacher's edition of my textbooks, slogging through, coming up with whatever will give me something to do for the very next day. And whatever google can supply for activity ideas. Suffice to say, I don't have a lot of free time, so I use the weekend to catch up on my rest and do some thing UN-work related, at least until Sunday, when I have to do everything for Monday... you get the picture.

But hey, I'm doing it. Right? And if I can teach here, I can teach anywhere. That's what I tell myself.

Speaking of doing things that nobody else really wants to do, my dad is teaching me how to drive stick-shift. My official reason for learning is that I may want to buy a standard for my next car (they're cheaper), and it would help to know how to drive one before I got one. But the real reason is, I must confess, my competitive nature. I refuse to have something that I cannot do, that I have not at least attempted. There are lots of things I cannot do, or that I cannot do well, and I know this because I have tried to do them. But I hate to assume (or have people assume for me) that I cannot do something when I haven't ever taken a crack at it. After all, I am a firm believer that one CAN do just about anything if they try hard enough.

And I want to learn stick shift so I can say "I can drive stick!" even if none of my friends see the need to learn in this day and age. Plus, learning new skills is good for you--it fights senility and Altzheimers and all that fun stuff.

And also, because there's something cool about a stick shift. In the words of a Bruce Springsteen song "Well Billy bought a Chevy '40 Coupe Deluxe/ Chrome wheels, stick shift, give her gas, pop the clutch..."

Thank you Bets. :)

~Heather