A Saturday with an Identity Crisis

I’m not sure if today should be considered the first day of the last week of Summer Break or the first Saturday of the Teacher Work Year (Unofficial). I suppose it is a little of both.

Not all teachers went in to work on the three unofficial workdays this past week. From my team, only two of us spent any time at the school. The science teacher on my team was there one day. I was there three days. Neither the social studies teacher nor the language arts teacher put in any time that I know of.

For those of us that worked this past week, today is the first day of the first weekend of the new Teacher Work Year. For the rest of the teachers at my school, it is the first day of the last weekend of Summer Break.

I have friends who teach at schools on a different schedule than ours. Some of them started workdays on 8/1 and students started classes on 8/8. I don’t envy them now, but I will come spring when they finish school before Memorial Day and I’m still working until mid-June.

This Saturday morning did follow the first high school football Friday night in these parts. The high school my middle school feeds into opened its season with a home game. Since many of my former students are either football players, cheerleaders, in the band, or likely to attend, I made a point of being there for this first game.

Nature threatened to bring the game to an early end, but other than some light rain the game was able to go on, at least as long as I stayed. After a day of moving furniture around my classroom and then coming home and mowing the backyard, I decided staying for the first half would fulfill my obligation. Considering the on-again-off-again rain, staying for half the game seemed enough for me.

There will be other home games, with more clement weather, and before long middle school games will start so I will be able to get my fill of football, soccer, and volleyball at both levels.

Source: Pixabay CC0 Public Domain

But today being Saturday meant yardwork for half the day. Then it got too hot to be outside. So I came in and made us a pizza and my missus and I sat down to watch the Olympics. We watched the Bronze Medal match between Nigeria and Honduras and cheered Nigeria on to victory. Then we watched Brazil and Germany in the Gold Medal match. We were pulling for Germany, but couldn’t feel too badly about Brazil winning.

Most of the rest of the day I spent working on my next book. My two main characters are growing closer and closer. It must be about time for something to happen to pull them apart. But that will be for another writing session.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator