It Boggles The Mind...what's left of it.

I wore wool socks to bed last night. I awoke to a frightfully chilly house and stumbled out to the car for the morning commute to discover that it was only just above freezing out there. My classroom remained frigid for the entire day and no amount of sunlight hitting the windows could bring the temperature up enough to make me take of my stylin' velour hoodie. I was grateful that I'd thought to continue in the wool sock tradition for the day.

Half of my class is sick and spent the day sneezing, shivering or (heaven help me) vomiting and some didn't bother to even show up. The rest of us huddled together in one corner of the room, enveloped in a fog of disinfectant and hoping for the best. We chanted magical spells and threw rocks at anyone of a sickly nature who thought to even venture near us.

Sickly, sneezing children passing disease back and forth while confined in a small classroom. Arctic temperatures raging all around us and preventing the opening of windows, thus ensuring that we will never, ever release the germy horror. This is the stuff of January. Maybe even February.

But in May? The week before Memorial Day, no less? That is just madness.

With five weeks to go before the end of this most challenging of school years, I can expect the weather to turn soon. By week's end, I suppose I'll be whining about the heat and you will wonder why you even bother stopping by since you've heard it all before. At least it will be seasonal, though.

On the plus side, the cooler temperatures do keep my third floor classroom from totally overheating. We learned the hard way last Fall just how bad it can get in there when the sun beats down on my little corner of the building. It also inspires me mightily to knit upon that sleeve I've been working on. Sleeve-knitting in late May would normally seem weird. Not so when you wake up to find frost on the lawn!

On the negative side, the kids in my school are not fooled one little bit by the weather. They know that the end is near. They further know that we, their hapless teachers, are kind of tired. And that our power over them has limits. Sure, we have progress reports to hold over their heads next week. And final grades will probably sting a bit for some of them. But, in the end, we will lose our hold on them in just over a month. They know this. They have us right where they want us. We still have to show up if we want the paycheck, but we can't make them learn nuthin' if they ain't of a mind.

I cling to my sanity in a variety of ways. I knit, of course. That is soothing. I maintain a rigorous (sort of) schedule of physical exercise and then I eat leftover birthday cake. There's something of a balance there, I suppose.

I also seem to be spending a great deal of time listening to this song. It is currently in the #1 spot on my Ipod playlist.

I wonder why...

SA