The New View

Well, here it is!  The last bus pulled away yesterday and, as I watched from the third floor windows of the school building, I mentally began to prepare myself for the transition from Working Sheepie to Vacationing Sheepie.  It's a very different life, you know.  Ten months out of the year, I envy those people who get to experience exotic things like "lunch hours" and "water cooler banter."  Then I have those two months where I can smile and wave because my career comes with this amazing perk.

You may be wondering just what the view looks like from this angle.  It's fascinating, actually.  Like traveling abroad where everything is all new and fresh.  Here are a few of the things you might see from this vantage point:

1.  When you finally feel like summer vacation is upon you and start to relax just a bit, you can count on your principal to remind everyone at the staff luncheon that they are not on vacation.  He will smile benevolently and direct you to report to the school first thing Monday morning for mandatory training.  He will even go a step further and make sure that you know you are a part of the group that is attending four days instead of the two for which other people are scheduled.

2.  Gritting your teeth and mentally doing the math to figure out your per diem rate for four work days beyond your contract is a fabulous way to find your Happy Place in this sort of situation.  Free Chinese food and the prospect of going to school without children also helps.

3.  You get to leave school at 1:00 on the last day.  That is awesome.

4.  Well...you don't so much "get" to leave as you "walk out because you know everyone who has power over you is too tired to try and stop you at this point."

5.  When you get home before 2:00 and are all giddy over this state of affairs, you can be assured that someone will be setting up scaffolding around your building so they can put up the new siding.  There is nothing like a strange face peering in your second floor window and hammering happily away to kick off the summer break season.

6.  It is probably not the best idea to set up your vehicle inspection and oil change for 8:00 on the morning after the last day of school.  You will be kind of tired and not really feeling like going off to do responsible things.

7.  It is a worse idea to not do the required state inspection in April when you were supposed to, though. So you have no one to blame but yourself...

8.  You should know that not everyone follows your Facebook status obsessively and hangs on your every word.  They don't.  You are delusional if you think the world is talking about the update you posted thirty minutes earlier about being in the service center.  They have lives.  Hence, it is very likely that they will misinterpret your comments about how quickly they pulled your car out of the bay.

9.  It is a miracle no one called my parents.  Seriously.

10.  Surprisingly, you won't forget how to knit even if you don't do it for weeks and weeks.  While you sit waiting for your car (which is most decidedly not sinking into the briny deep), your hands will just remember what to do and you will knit an inch of sock.

11.  It might be worth pondering if that same principle applies to those who are waiting for their cars to be pulled out of an actual bay...

12.  When you get home, the guy with the hammer will be back at it and dangling precariously from the roof.  Nothing says summer like a pair of dirty work boots waving in your windows!

13.  None of this matters.  Not a bit of it.  Because you just survived a school year and you did it without tearing out a clump of your own hair.  Or at least not in a spot where it is all that noticeable. It is summer vacation and even another week spent at the school is going isn't to take that feeling away.


The view from here is rather nice right now...

SA