State of Mind

Perhaps I spoke too soon when I proclaimed a near truce in my decades-long battle with Daylight Savings Time...

(Actually its real name is Daylight Saving Time, or even more accurately, Daylight-saving Time; for a full discussion on this topic, click here.)

Anyhoo, even if I feel like my own personal transition to the abominable time change has been relatively painless this year, over the past couple of days there has been compelling evidence otherwise.

Exhibit 1: My own sister's comment on this very blog: I believe it is the karmic balance effect. It is killing me!

Exhibit 2: No fewer than 15 students have mentioned oversleeping or being verrrry tired in school in the last two days. Some kids can barely pick their heads up off the desks until third period!

Exhibit 3: From the mouths, or rather the keyboards, of children, here's what one of my students posted today:

Now, we have to get up an hour earlier, so I'm not 100% sure about school, and the teacher's state of mind. They're now probably not getting the right amount of sleep every night, what with staying up grading papers all night. 

He's right! What was I thinking? DST-- you still suck!

Not the Dinner I Planned

"How are you doing?" a colleague asked me after school today.

"Oh, fine," I told her.

"That's good!" she said, but then added "Really?"

"Well, you know," I shrugged and gestured to my empty classroom and sighed.

She knew what I meant. "We have an expression in our family," she said and told me the story of a time when a dear friend of theirs had a business meeting near where her in-laws lived.

They generously offered to put him up, and he brought her son and his along for a couple days. As it happened, the three were delayed getting on the road, and then one thing led to another, so by the time they arrived, it was quite late and her mother-in-law was standing at the door, arms crossed. "We're finally here!" the friend exclaimed.

"Well," said her mother-in-law, "it's not the dinner I planned."

But it was the dinner she served.

Going Gentle into that Good Night

Maybe all the time off we've had lately has left me well-rested, or maybe my fighting spirit has been dulled by all the slings and arrows and outrageous indignities of education reform, or maybe it's something else, but Daylight Savings Time?

Not too bad this year.

Constellations of Crows

Sometimes I imagine I hear them even when the sky is empty.

They must have many places to roost, because the crows who gather in these gray and blue winter evenings are neither daily, nor even weekly, visitors to the tall trees right across the way. When they do assemble, though, hundreds of birds band the branches, and it's thrilling to watch the woods fill up with crows. Arriving boisterously in small mobs, each influx disrupts those who have come before, and black clouds rise and resettle raucously until night finally falls, and the congregation stills.

In Praise of March

As I've mentioned before, March brings the annual Slice of Life Challenge. A month-long blogging challenge originally sponsored by Two Writing Teachers starting in 2008, it is not only the reason I post every day, but it has also inspired the writing challenge my students are participating in right now. AND, for the fifth year in a row, the other three members of my writing group have braved the contest as well, pledging to write regularly throughout the month.

Reading what they have to say is like unwrapping a little present every day. Our lives are so busy and we are too often preoccupied with details both large and small that prevent us from genuinely connecting. Just a paragraph or two shines enough light to span the time and distance between us. 

Write on.

Oblivious

I saw a former student at the grocery store yesterday; he was working as a bagger. He greeted me heartily and asked if I was still at the same school.

"Yep," I assured him.

"You must see my mom all the time then!"

I was stumped. "Who's your mom?" I asked.

"The cafeteria lady!" he told me. "She's been there for a few  years."

I don't really get down to the cafeteria very much at all, and I sheepishly reminded him that my room was tucked away in a corner where I don't often see many people.

He smiled agreeably, but an awkward silence fell as the cashier finished ringing up my order. "Did your mom enjoy her days off because of the snow?" I asked brightly, in an attempt to end the conversation on a happy note.

"Not really," he said. "If she doesn't work, she doesn't get paid, and she needs the money."

I nodded sympathetically, wished him well, and pushed my cart full of groceries toward my car. I don't think I'll ever look at snow days quite the same way again.

A Tale of Two Haircuts

It was the worst of haircuts.

I decided to make good use of my time off yesterday and get a quick haircut. While I am a bit picky about my hair, I've found that in general it is very forgiving. Most cuts look fine, and I can usually go a couple months before it is really really time for a trim. This was one of those occasions-- the static electricity that is so common in winter had only exacerbated my fly aways and split ends. So off I went to a budget salon not too far from my home.

When I entered, they were not very busy, but they still made me sit for a few moments and wait. After a little while, one of the stylists huffed up to the counter. "What does she want?" she asked the cashier, as if I weren't three feet away. "Cut and blow dry? I guess I can do that while she's processing." She jerked her head at a woman with foil in her hair reading a magazine.

I did not have a good feeling when she called me by name and beckoned me to her chair. I told her I wanted a similar cut to what I had, and that it had been a few months since my last trim. "Do you want go for the supreme moisturizing package?" she asked. "Since your hair is processed."

"My hair isn't processed," I said with irritation.

"Oh. I didn't think you were a natural blond," she shrugged.

I should have bailed then, but 20 minutes later I left with a weird greasy haircut, practically in tears. I know I should have demanded my "smile back guarantee", but looking in the mirror, all I wanted to do was flee.

It's not like I haven't had an unsettling experience at the salon before-- I know you get what you pay for-- but as I've said, my hair is much more forgiving than I am. In the past, I might go home and wash my hair and dry it myself, and leave it at that, but this time, the travesty seemed insurmountable, so much so, that I drove to another place and presented my abominable locks to them.

It was the best of haircuts.

The hair care professional there was much more amenable-- she talked to me a good five minutes and showed me pictures on a flip chart to be sure she understood what I wanted.

What I wanted was a change. She cut my hair much shorter than it's been in quite a while, and I really like it.