A Life? What's that?

For the first time this year, I sit down to this blog and don't know what to write.  Usually I feel very passionate about a certain issue, but for the last few days I've mostly just felt...well...stressed.  My mind is elsewhere, thinking about what I need to be doing.  As the people around me are talking, I'm making a mental checklist of all the things I need to do.  I wake up panicked, remembering something important I'd forgot to do the previous day.  I scribble down hundreds of post-it notes.  I try to be as organized as possible, as on top of life as possible, but the ladder keeps extending no matter how high I climb.  This is a feeling I'm sure many of you recognize, but perhaps don't realize haunts the lives of teachers as well.

Even though I leave school around 3:30 or 4, I still take home about 2-3 hours of work to read and grade every night.  With the end of the quarter fast approaching, the work piles up, and my teacher bag begins to resemble the belly of a pregnant woman having quadruplets.  Instead of having to watch my Tivo'd shows while simultaneously grading vocabulary tests, I wish I could just enjoy my life at home, be with Joey, nap with my kitties, be lame, be boring, but at least breathe.  I haven't played Guitar Hero in 3 months.  I haven't watched a movie, gone out of town, or just chillaxed since school started.  And it's starting to take a toll.

The kind of teacher I am, well, school creeps into my personal life, and definitely vice versa.  And mostly of the time, I love it that way, couldn't imagine having a different job.  But sometimes, during weeks like these, I fantasize about jobs where it's left at the door once you lock it behind you. 

It's tough being a teacher.  I know it's hard being a student, I know.  But it's tough being a teacher.  At least a super sickfresh, kick-butt, hard-core, gangsta teacher like myself.  Keep that in mind the next time you ask your teacher for something.  True, they may actually be douchy, or they may just be trying to remember what having a life felt like.