and now, a friendly message from my teacher brain.

Hey. Did you know school starts in a few weeks? It totally does. Some teachers better start getting their acts together, right?

Right.

Already the school dreams have started. They crept up on me slowly this time, but now they’re in full swing.

The list of school-mares has been growing rapidly. Lost a student? Sure. Forgot to put on your clothes today, teach? Well I don’t know how that happened! Grarg. And always, always there is a person shaking their head at me disapprovingly. Arg!

Last night I was dreaming of school (missed my bus and was late the first day, in case you were wondering), and then my dream segued into a dream about a monster looming over me and breathing on my in my sleep. The monster then breathed out a gust of air WOOSH! and I woke up in a cold sweat. Heavy stuff right?! Needless to say someone in our apartment finished their copy of Game of Thrones at 3 a.m. this morning.

(It was me, fyi.)

Anyhow, I didn’t get to sleep until like 7, and even then only for a half hour. (There’s no sleeping in once Cricket decides you should be awake, let me tell you.) The result is a brain rife with teacher thoughts, and a desire to both get everything done now! now! now! … and to put off everything until tomorrow.

For someone who’s employed to be organized and on top of things, I’m pretty good at procrastinating.

Wanna know a secret? One of my favourite (read: least smart) things to do is to avoid things that make me anxious or that I find unpleasant. This list includes but is not limited to: doctor’s appointments (I know.), dentist appointments (I KNOW!), house cleaning , taking out the garbage, visiting my parents (even though I love them), hanging pictures, and – oh yes! – planning for a new school year.

Something teachers rarely share is that many of us have this great sense of panic at the start of a new school year. “Wait!” we think, “What if I really can’t teach and I’ve forgotten EVERYTHING! What am I supposed to do on the first day of school? What if things go wrong?” What if what if what if.

It’s crazy that this is every year for me. Crazy! And it’s always the same really: I get in there and I have this immediate sense of ahhhhhh… so THIS is what’s been missing. Because I love my job. I LOVE my job.

What I don’t love is figuring out what to do that first day.

That’s the hardest.

So today, after planning for a bit, I will instead paint my nails with this, and go for a long walk by the canal.

I know. I know.

<3 S

P.S.: It was totally our air conditioner that woke me up. Guess that’s the price you pay for climate control.

P.S.S.: Soon I will have to deal with all kinds of this in our crawlspace to get to my teaching books...

.... boy oh boy.