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March 21, 2008
Friday Mornings
I like Friday mornings. At least, I like them when they're allowed to fulfill their proper function, the way I designed my schedule. When my schedule is back under control, like it is now, Friday mornings are project, meeting and class free. Friday mornings are my time off. I don't have office hours and I don't--when my schedule is under control--have grading. It's me time.
Ideally, I don't have anything until I go to teach class at 12:30 on Fridays, though this morning I have to go in early to type up the lesson plan for the three hour Friday class I co-teach. We talked about it yesterday and I wrote some things down, but I didn't type them up because I was grading and wanted to get that done so it wasn't hanging over my head. I still have lots and lots of grading to do, including an exam and a raft of papers that I'm trying to be as picky as possible with, so that the students can turn in final drafts that are just stunning, but it's under control. I think I can get it all done when it needs to be done. Even though my evenings are not my own right now. Or for the rest of the semester, actually, since I just signed on to do another show that begins rehearsals as soon as Woods of Weaver closes.
So when I have a Friday morning like this morning, when I discover that I'm out of the stuff I need to make my breakfast smoothie, when I'm shaking my roll-on deodorant and it flips out of my hand and plops into the toilet, when there is fresh snow on the ground, the streets, the cars, It's not as stressful as it would be to make a quick run to the store on, say, a Thursday, when I have to be in the classroom at 9:30. (Actually, on a Thursday I would have to find alternative breakfast and deodorant solutions because going ot the store before class would be out of the question.)
Even the tedious and neverending noseblowing from this cold isn't quite as annoying as usual on a Friday morning like this morning.
On mornings like this, I feel like I have all the time in the world, and it's a welcome change from the way I normally live my life. If I can have this little breather, the insane workload and busy schedule don't seem quite as heavy. When I don't get my Friday mornings, I get a little bit crazy. It's actually a good indicator that something needs to change, when my I can't keep myself to myself on Friday mornings but instead have to focus on grading or meetings.
To be honest, I prefer having entire Fridays off, but that hasn't worked out this year. It may not work out next year, either, though I'm still shooting for really full at school Tuesdays and Thursdays and grading/art days on Monday Wednesday Friday. I just know that teaching is exhausting enough that I need to not do it five days a week if I can help it. That's why I opted out of one of the classes I'm teaching now.
In the meantime, I have my Friday mornings. And they're soothing enough that I can even be polite to little old ladies in fluffy pink hats who wander down the sidewalk selling Jehovah door to door as though faith were a magazine. Even after the deodorant mishap.
Posted by sally at March 21, 2008 08:14 AM
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