The blog of Luther M. Siler, teacher, author and local curmudgeon
Went to bed last night feeling fine, slept through the night without issue, and realized I wasn’t going to work within ten seconds of waking up this morning. I slept all day and right now I still kind of feel like hell but I’m going to try to go in tomorrow because writing lesson plans for the 3rd day of the semester is kind of a nightmare. But God forbid I forget to put up some kind of blog post, right?
Expect a book review tomorrow.
I’m not quite ready to write either of the book posts or the blogwanking post that typically finish off the year, and I’ve spent most of the day either napping or trying to figure out what the hell I did to my leg (I think I’ve got a pinched nerve; this post was nearly called “in which I need a doctor”) and one way or another my thinkyparts are not especially engaged at the moment.
I’m going to try and play video games for a bit now, but my hip/leg/knee thing hasn’t been playing well with my desk chair, so we’ll see.
I’ve been in sweatpants and a hoodie all day.
Haven’t left the house. Not going to tomorrow, either.
Got some reading done. Took a nice nap in my recliner this afternoon. Spent a couple of hours gaming– if you’re looking for something to fall into before the world starts up again, you could do worse than Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. And now that the boy’s in bed, I’m going to wrap the rest of the Christmas presents.
Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, I hope it’s peaceful.
I am bored and kvetchy and it’s making my anxiety act up something fierce. I actually got quite a lot done today– no big projects, but a ton of little jobs around the house and I got the oil changed on the car– but since the sun went down I’ve turned into a mess, and I can’t concentrate well enough to read.
That part’s the alarming part, honestly. It’s rare that I can’t focus enough to read. I’m watching someone else play a video game while I’m writing this, and I’m starting to think I need to dive back into Skyrim or something like that; I simultaneously need something new to do and am kind of aching for something familiar and comfortable I can just fall into.
I’m also, for the first time in several years, pretty excited (or at least not actively dreading) Christmas, mostly because I feel like I definitely won Christmas this year. I don’t know if other families do this thing, where they’re competitive about who gets each other the best gifts– hell, I don’t know if my family does this thing or if it’s just me– but one way or another it’s me, hi, I won Christmas, it’s me.
Anyway, I’m going to go take down the wallpaper in the library or something.
Got home from work.
Made a pot of coffee.
Drank a large cup of coffee from my Rasta Lion mug, which is my favorite.
Immediately fell asleep in my chair.
I am not kidding when I say I am immune to caffeine.
To be clear, that’s not one of our buses, although we did have a day earlier this week where every single bus was at least ten minutes late to school. It’s gross outside right now– I had to make a quick run to Target that couldn’t be put off until tomorrow, and while the roads weren’t bad, the parking lot was a bloody nightmare and I’m moderately surprised I’m still alive.
I told a class earlier this week that we should have a regular week of school because I wasn’t aware of any bad weather in the near future, so naturally we got a “We are carefully monitoring the weather and will make an announcement about a delay or cancellation as soon as feasible” email tonight. I explicitly do not want a delay or a cancellation between now and next Wednesday; we have shit to do. Which probably makes a delay tomorrow inevitable, unfortunately.
Anyway, how is it possible that after 20-some-odd years as a teacher and a few longer than that “in education” I still don’t really have any idea how school districts decide whether or not to cancel or delay school? The message I got mentions “closely monitoring the weather, along with sidewalk conditions, side streets, and bus stop access,” which … okay, that makes sense, but how? By who? That decision’s gonna be made at 5:00 in the morning. What network is the superintendent (I assume? Transportation’s surely involved, but that’s not something that’s going to be delegated, is it?) tapping into at 4:30 AM to figure out if school needs to be delayed in time for people to actually have time to react to the decision?
I would be completely unsurprised to discover that the decision was just based on vibes, on some sleepy-ass Lord High Muckety-Muck waking up and padding out to his driveway and making a call based on that, and there’s also definitely some domino theory going on, at least around here– if more than two of the three or four biggest districts close, everybody’s going down in rapid succession.
I think I’ll ask my boss tomorrow for some more details. They sure as hell aren’t asking the teachers.
(Also, I’d like for districts to implement a formal policy on days like this, that if we get an email at 7:30 the night before that we’ll have a decision “as soon as possible,” that we are also officially notified by the crack of dawn if we are not changing the schedule. It keeps me from checking my phone eighteen thousand times in the morning as I’m deciding whether I should get dressed for work. If you know we aren’t cancelling, say that.)
Remember how, when we were kids, getting sent to bed early was a punishment? And now going to bed an hour earlier than normal is absolutely the greatest thing that could happen?
Anyway, guess what I’m doing.
Not that my immediate family is that large, but I’m done with all Christmas shopping for my immediate family, and everyone else is pretty much gift card people. My brother will send me a list for my niece and nephew, who are too young to get mad at me for buying the wrong thing anyway, and the basement goblin will likely get cash. The tree went up after Thanksgiving and I’ve been changing the lights every time I walk into the living room just because I can.
(Seriously, Govee lights are amazing. Ignore the price; order these. They’re absolutely worth every dime.)
Anyway, what this means is that everything’s going to show up broken, or not show up at all, or I’m suddenly going to realize four days before Christmas that my wife and son don’t actually like any of the things I got them for Christmas and I’ve somehow accidentally ordered a ton of stuff for me instead. This is actually a bit of a risk with the boy; he and I have enough tastes in common that I actually rejected a gift I was thinking about for him this year because I decided I wanted it and not him. He’d have liked it, I think, but it was a little too expensive for “he’d have liked it, I think.”
I have one thing left to do for my wife, which is going to involve Doing Art, and which will be a funny joke even if I completely fuck up Doing the Art. She looks at the blog kind of irregularly, so I could probably get away with telling y’all the plan, but … nah.
How’s your shopping going?
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