Happy New Year

And Then It Was Over

I finished the Twilight Series. It was exhausting, emotionally draining, and very obsession-creating. I loved it. I loathed it.

I want to be a vampire.
Or marry a wolf.
I can't decide. Team Edward? Team Jacob? I can't pick! All I know is it makes total sense why girls get sucked in. It's all so intriguing, sensual, exciting, romantic. And it's all make-believe. Boooo.

On the reader side of it though it's sad. You dedicate all this time to reading these books, and wondering what's going to happen, and staying up late, and talking about at work when you're supposed to be working.
And then one day your done.
There is no more.

You have to go to the library and pick something else to read.

Happy Hanukie

Anyway today is the last night of Hanukkah and was also the day I just didn't care about crap at work. We had our Hanukkah show (which becomes the "Winter Show" because most of the students aren't actually Jewish) and the kids knew something was up because they were all fucking ape-shit wild all day.
Since we're so close to vacation and I'm usually dead-as-a-mofo-tired by Friday I usually just let them run amok and interject my adultness sparingly. If I try too hard on Fridays I might end up doing something naughty and being hauled off to jail.

So "rest" time: which for 3 year-olds and for well-behaved kids means that you sit on a dirty, flimsy plastic mat and nod to sleep for an hour but for my kids it means progressively get louder and do more and more illicit 4 year-old activities until the teacher loses her shit and yells to be quiet and sit down.
Normally I do stress out because it's a half hour for me where you can't distract them with activities because you're not supposed to have activities but they're just not going to sit and chill in their own private worlds so I'm basically freaking out the whole time and hating my life and even them (occasionally...well no, not occasionally, mostly always). But today was one big 'FUCK IT'.

At one point in this little alcove 6 of my little delinquents had gathered and created "weapons" out of toys. They were beating the crap out of each other with fists and feet. Making punching noises with their mouths. It was kinda funny but because I have 15 boys in my class the play-fighting progressed to actual fighting many months ago. There are just too many of them to stay innocent. So anyway, here they are REALLY hitting and kicking and I literally was just sitting there, in a tiny chair, eating my yogurt and making bets with myself about who would start crying first. They were all holding their own pretty well and you could tell they were loving this mini brawl. At one point the head teacher zipped in because she forgot something (we each take a half-hour break during "rest" time) and she saw me watching them brawl and she busted out laughing. She later told me that she announced to our friend in the front office that "Jamie must be done because she's just sitting there watching them kick each other's asses."

Let me tell you: If you are not a teacher and you ever nag a teacher about having lots of vacation you best shut your trap. This crap is exhausting and we need and deserve every day we get. I don't even have to plan lessons and grade papers. You're in a room with 20 behavioral experiments. 20 children who exhibit all the mistakes their parents are making.

This job is fucking nuts.

This Thing Called Pain

I called out from work today. Let me tell you, there is nothing more horrible than going to bed early to be well rested but waking up at 5 in the morning with a raging, stabbing, migraine. It just ruins any hope of having a normal day. I've been getting more migraines lately and because of the nature of where I work and what I do (nursery school, not-so-understanding employer) I've been ingesting all sorts of over-the-counter pills, going into work, and being miserable all morning until my brain starts functioning a little more normally by the afternoon. But this morning it was early and I knew it was only going to get worse so I called out.

It's now 2pm and even though it's a little better I'm still uncomfortable. It pretty much wipes you out. It's like I've been in a battle all day. So here I am, in slight pain, worried about the crap vibe I might get at work tomorrow, and I can't even watch tv or read a book because it's too stimulating. Even creating this post is pushing it but I needed something to do to crawl out of bed for a bit. So off I go back to sulk on the couch. I don't get to work-out today even though I hate skipping. I don't get to read. I just have to wait for it to go away.