FYI: I'm okay....really.

I'm on vacation! Whew. I made it without hurting anyone..and believe me, it was close. Teaching in a high school at this time of year is difficult. While my colleagues and I counted down to the LAST DAY, we watched students leaving early by droves...as if what was occurring in class was not of any importance. Kind of cuts into your sense of pride and who needs to teach the curriculum anyway?  No doubt my colleagues and I will be innundated with requests for make-up work when these students return...which adds to our already immense work load.

Which leads me to negativity. There are some people I work with who have been sucked into a downward spiral of negativity. And believe me, I understand! Like I said in an earlier post, teaching in a public school has become a delicate balancing act of keeping politics out and professionalism in. Daily rantings and, frankly, a lot of bitching, has eaten away at our sense of commradarie. I'm starting to avoid certain people so I can keep a relatively positive outlook. Should I feel badly about that? I do, but a sense of survival has kicked in.

This sense of survival helped me create this blog. I love the name of my blog. Let me relate it's orgins: my husband and I were at the Grand Canyon (everyone MUST visit this majestic place at least once!) and well, I wanted to look over the edge to see the colors and honestly, how far down was DOWN. I tend to take risks and my curiosity gets the better of me. Or as my husband would say, " you fall UP the stairs so be more careful" (sometime I'll relate said falling-up-the-stairs episode which resulted in spectacular black eye!) Of course, it is impossible to put a railing around the whole canyon and as I was inching my way to the edge to  get a better look, my husband was behind me...WAY BEHIND me intoning calmly, "step back from the edge". So, that's kind of what I'm doing now....finding my way back from the edge...you know, metaphorically. However, some people don't get subtlety, inferences or any of those 'higher order thinking skills' that we in education call HOTS (no one loves acronyms like educators). No need to worry, people! I'm not going to off myself ... or anyone for that matter. I'm just finding my way back to me....the 'me' that I like.

Sublety...a fine art lost in this age of Jersey Shore and Bad Girls Club (not that I don't enjoy those shows). And while I'm at it....how about negativity? It seems we have a bumper crop of that lately. Fellow edge-dwellers, what is your experience with these demons and how have you dealt with them? I need to know.