Sideways

We've broken our all-time record for rain in November. Everyone around the world thinks of Seattle and rainfall as synonomous so I'm not sure anyone will even look up from the Sunday papers to realize how much rain has fallen recently. On the year, we usually get about 38 inches of rain. This month alone we are close to, if not beyond, 14 inches already. Yes, the summer was dry and hot, but January and February of 2006 were rainy, as were March, April, and May.

And now it's coming down sideways. Sheets of it, mixed with snow. Not enough snow to stick nor enough snow to keep me from going back to work tomorrow. Too bad, though, as that means I need to grade some papers today.

But with rain falling sideways, it's hard to get motivated. I just want to curl up on the couch and solve one Sudoku puzzle after another or nap or read a book or write or bake brownies.

Unfortunately, those ungraded papers keep calling me from the corner of the room.

Where did I learn to feel such guilt? Why not just grade them during my planning time at school? Why not just allow myself to have a relaxing, stress-free, work-free vacation, which until this moment, the kind of vacation I've had?

The problem, of course, is that unfinished work piles up and instead of 2 hours worth of grading, I have 3 hours, then 4, then 8 and when it reaches that proportion, I go into panic mode, unable to sleep well or function in a way that is calm and within the optimum blood-pressure range.

Years ago, when I taught in a small town, there was a teacher I shall call Gus. Gus taught, of all things, typing, though later it was renamed "keyboarding" as we moved from electric typewriters, to computers. Granted, this was not a hard job, at least not the way Gus taught it. He'd just walk around the class saying "j j j j, space bar, f f f f" like a human metronome. Later, the kids worked off a recording and his job was simply to walk around the classroom and check the students' progress, which he rarely did. Instead, I'd see him sitting at his desk, his feet up and a newspaper or magazine resting open in his lap, reading.

School started at 7:45 in the morning. We were required by our contracts to be there by 7:15, but I usually arrived at 6:30 to prepare for the day. School ended at 2:15 and again, by contract we were required to stay until 2:45. Rarely did I get home before 5.

Gus, on the other hand, arrived promptly at 7:15 and left promptly at 2:45. On weekends, when I'd run errands and then head back home to grade papers and prepare lessons, I'd see Gus around town or out on his tractor (he owned a farm) feeding the cows or fixing a fence.

He had no papers to grade. He had no lessons to plan. He earned a living as a teacher, but he didn't have to do much to earn it. Show up to school, attend the meetings, complete report cards, which moved from hand-written reports to computer generated grading and comments. My first year of teaching it took me about 4 full days of work (usually two weekends) to fill out the labor-intensive hand-written report cards. When the computer version came along, I could whip them out in an hour, though I'd have to have entered all my assignment grades into my gradebook (also on the computer) by that time so the upfront time was just as much...only the actual report card time was reduced.

I wanted to be Gus for many years. I wanted to arrive exactly on time and leave exactly on time. I wanted my weekends free except for the work I chose (I, too, lived on a farm with sheep and llamas, and spent a fair amount of my time mending fences). I wanted to be able to be "unattached" to my place of work, emotionally uninvolved and as guilt free as Gus appeared to be. I wanted to walk up and down the aisles of my classroom watching fingers fly clumsily across the keyboards and give an evil eye to the boys in the back of class who talked during the lesson or to the girls who passed notes.

But I couldn't. I was a history teacher, then an English teacher and I felt passionate about what we studied. I wanted my students to feel passionate, too.

I know, I know this is all admirable and meaningful and the kind of teaching we all wish we had or only had on occasion, but still, I envied Gus his easy path. Hell, he wouldn't be here right now, typing furiously on his blog hoping to avert the papers in the living room that needed grading? He'd be out in the sideways rain tending to his cattle or at the cafe playing dice with the other soggy farmers. He'd be at the feed store yucking it up with the clerks, telling stories about the coldest days, the bloodiest calvings, the price of grain.

Of course, Gus retired early, too. He lost his hearing. All those years of listening to manual typewriters clickclickclick damaged his ear drums and by the time he retired, he could only hear about 30% of what he normally could.

I moved away from that small town. Away from the llamas and the sheep and the work of the farm. Away from the school where I taught about 140 kids a day. Now I teach in the city, at a private school where I work with 16 kids a day. In the old days, 140 papers would be calling from the living room. Today it's only about 30. I have my hearing. I can hear the furnace kick on and the keyboard click away and the rain hit sideways on my windows. Still, 30 papers seems like 30 too many when I'm on vacation. 30 papers feels like a crime, an insult, a burden.

I don't want to teach keyboarding. I know that for sure. But I'd certainly like to teach at a job that only required 8 hours a day.

And no guilt. I'd like a job that didn't hit my guilt button so often.

The snow is gone. It's just rain on the windows now. The downspout sounds like a faucet. The end of November. Only 3 weeks before winter break. If I don't want to be grading papers then, I should grade them now. No chance for a snow day tomorrow...

...but, if I get my papers graded today and it DOES snow, then tomorrow will be free and clear. Just me, my Sudoku puzzles, and day on the couch without guilt. Well, without too much guilt anyway.