#MTBosBlaugust - The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back

Right now, this feels like a selfie, and not a free pic from a Google Search.  Honestly, I feel like the camel must feel, but I feel like I pulled the load without the wheels today.  Today was the last official day of summer for me.  Tomorrow is mandatory arrival, but today was out of the goodness of my heart and out of the desperation to have a decent looking room for the kids who are joining me on Monday.  It was to have been a zip in, zip out kind of day.  You know the kind of day when you get dressed in three minutes, your hair is suspect and you put on makeup and hope for the best because your alarm clock was incorporated into your dream?  (Or is that just me).  That's what today was to have been for my class.  Everything would look good and ready, but nothing is truly ready.  It just looks good.  That was the goal.  Come home, chill out, head to the dentist and recline for the evening.  Alas, not so.

My posters may well have been the straw that broke the camel's back.  I nearly lost my sanity today.  The air conditioning in my room was broken and the temperature was 88.  Truly.  At other times, it was 91, but I opened the door to the hallway and got it to 88.  At least by the thermostat. :)   Maintenance came in a bunch of times, but they seemed as equipped as I am to contend with the A/C.  (I live in a state with palm trees, and it was 22 kinds of hot today.)  My million dollar hair goop did not hold my hair straight.  (What's nice is that my salon charges full price, but it is on sale here.)  My hair stylist assures me that it will defeat humidity for up to 72 hours.  Well, I guess that only works if the temperature is below 72 degrees.  ARGH!  My hair just crawled up into a million curls and traveled every which way until I looked like I did not own a mirror.   That was a straw.

So, sweat dripping down, I go to hang up my posters, undeterred from my mission.  I hung them up with mavalous tape.  I refuse to link it because it worked so poorly.  I should have known when it was overpriced and came with instructions.  First you stretch it, then you twist it, then you apply it.  Well, no sooner did I get them up, they came down.  Of course, when it is on the floor, that tape stuck to anything it could, including the front of the posters.  Super annoying.  I try to apply it the old fashioned way.  Same thing.  I used painters tape which worked marginally better.  I think the tape was affected by the heat and went on strike.  Finally, I get it all up and headed to the other side of campus to help some other teachers.  They had their own issues, but their posters held up and their A/C worked.  Eventually, I located my glue gun and put it all up....again.  Hopefully, they will still be up when I arrive tomorrow.  But the repeated falling and sticking was another straw, and the final straw.

What I noticed was that we all had frustrations that normally would  not have rocked our boats.  It would have been annoying, yes, but not frustrating.  (Okay, get ready for the Math here.)  Nothing was adding up.  It took me a while on the trip home (I live 45 minutes away in the nonCovid environment, but only 37 minutes tonight.)  but I finally figured out the math of it all.  I never lose my cool.  I am a pro and not easily rattled.  I've been calm throughout the whole pandemic.  Initially, today,  I felt like I was physically uncomfortable and therefore short fused.  However, upon reflection, today I realized I was  more easily frustrated because so many things are out of my control and unknown.  I haven't faced much of that since everything at my house is all in my control.  My AC is good, my wifi works rapidly, everything I need is available.   I haven't been a lot of places since March (church, grocery store) but all at a social distance.  I'm thinking that I am out of practice in the real world.   I'm wearing a mask and sweating profusely.  My comfortable couch is nowhere in sight.  No one is there to assist me.  I have no other things to distract me.

Why am a rambling about the straw that broke the camel's back and posters on the floor?  Well, I'm just thinking that since several of us were rattled today, you may experience the same phenomenon.  More importantly, our kids may be experiencing that as well.  I have been concerned for their stamina, but I should be just as concerned about their ability to step back into the groove at school.  

I encourage you to take a few straws off when you get back to school and give yourself a break.  And, when the kids get back, we need to do the same for them.  Think of it as a halfway house approach.  They need to adjust to the new distancing in the classroom, but also to the input of a world where they have not been for 5 or 6 months.  We need to be patient and develop a rhythm that will allow them to feel comfortable and for them to be able to grow into the pace needed for the content we teach.   Let's work that straw removal into our lesson plans.  (Lesson plans which I will develop tomorrow, provided my posters stayed up overnight!)