Note to Self

Next June when the school year is coming to an end and the whole 2.x months of summer is staring you down and you feel just a little bit of trepidation at the thought of how in the world you're going to fill all of that time and avoid going insane with the boredom? Remember how good it is to have all this time off: to get out of bed whenever you want; to eat whenever you want; to decide what you want to do, whenever you want to do it, all the time. It's pretty nice and easy to get used to.

And yeah, I know that some of my imaginary readers are inner-monologuing with the standard "Oh, poor teachers, you get your summers off" gripe. One time only I will respond to this, and I'm sure I'm speaking for a large percentage of other teachers when I say this: SHUT IT. Blah blah blah blah blah. You don't have my job. You don't know what I put into it. You don't know the stress involved. The fact that you went to school yourself does not make you the least bit qualified to understand what it takes to do this and do it well. When you roll out the line "Teachers only work nine months a year" or "Must be nice to have the summer off" ? Okay, A) Most of us do thirteen months worth of work in those nine months that are usually closer to 10 once you factor in ending in mid-June and starting in mid-August and summer meetings and training and the post-grad work most of us do. And B) Yes. It is nice. And it's necessary for recharging for the next year, and dare I say, deserved. My job lays the cornerstones for the future of our society, and most people couldn't do it.

Huh. That came out a whole lot more frustrated than it was meant to. Oh well. Needed to be said. Let's move on.

Today I took Nephews #1 and #2 to see "Up" down at the local 3D movie palace. Nephew #3 had what you could call historic sunburn, so he stayed home to play cars and play Chess with his grandma instead so he didn't have to wear a shirt. "Up" was pretty awesome. I highly recommend it, even if you're one of these people who have a hard time bringing yourself to see a "cartoon." Trust me -- this movie ain't no cat and mouse hitting each other with frying pans.

Album of the Day: "Sheer Heart Attack" by Queen. I really had to force myself to listen to something other than my new DT album because it just gets better every time I play it. This one is kind of related since the Queen cover they did came from this album, and being an older album it's one that isn't known as well. Although this does have "Killer Queen" on it, which honestly, even though it's one of their more recognizable radio songs, doesn't crack my top 100 Queen songs. For the record, I have 270 Queen songs on the iPod, and even though I'd estimate that at least a third of those are live versions, that's still a lot of songs to record over a career.

To close, a friendly warning -- I'm about to bring on the full-court press in raising money for the Relay for Life, which happens in just over a month. 5 years now since we lost Dop and there's not a day that passes when I don't think about her. Plus I've got SuperKyle to walk for this year. Just need some money to collect. I want a really nice prize this year. So like I said -- be ready. It's cancer, people. It doesn't care what the economy is like. Everybody has one less night of pizza delivery in them for July.