Not bad, hey?

I’m sitting in front of my year 9 class as I’m writing this. I’m casting the movie we’re studying, (Yolngu Boy), onto the interactive whiteboard and so I can work on another tab on my laptop while they’re watching. I’ve taught this movie for the last 15 years at least, so I don’t need to sit there glued to it for the 401st time.

I know I’ve blogged quite a bit in recent months about making the decision to drop down to working 3 days a week, about feeling tired and more than a little burned out, but it would be a horrible job that didn’t have any good things about it! Teaching is far from being a horrible job – each day there are things that make me glad to be here.

One of the best things about teaching is that every day is different. When you’re working with kids, they always say or do things to make you laugh. For example, yesterday I was running a grammar lesson with my year 7’s. They were working out of their textbooks and I started to get a bit bored, so I began to draw caricatures of some of them up on the board.

“Draw yourself, Miss!” called out someone.

“No, I could never draw such radiant beauty as my face,” I said.

“Yeah, you could never draw so many wrinkles!!!” said Curtis.

Lucky for him that I’m not very vain! I laughed and laughed.

Stand-up comedy and I get paid for it. Not bad, hey?

Tomorrow is going to be a good day. When you teach Theatre Studies, guess what? You get to take the kids to see plays. Tomorrow we’re going to the Bell Shakespeare Company’s production of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. I get to see it for free, with the school paying for my ticket and train fare, plus of course I get paid for the day. I have 4 classes that other people will cover for me while I’m off enjoying myself. Not bad, hey?

Next week I’m going on an excursion with the German faculty. Every year they take the kids to the Cuckoo restaurant up in the hills. This is an excursion every teacher wants to go on, but with 250 teachers in the school, it’s hard to get a spot. But this year, after 16 years of being at the school, my turn has finally come. Yes, Frogdancer Jones will get paid to go to a restaurant and get fed. I’ll hear rollicking German songs and we’ll have some laughs. Not bad, hey?

There are also other benefits to working here. I’ve written about how I bring home the used newspapers and the veggie scraps from the canteen and Food Tech rooms to use for my compost for my veggie gardens. I’ve also set up a Tupperware container on my desk and people drop their banana peels, tea bags and other food scraps for me to take home. A couple of girls who live in apartments bring in all of their veggie scraps from home. They’re rapt that the scraps don’t go into landfill and I’m rapt that I’m getting free compost to build up the soil in my garden beds. Not bad, hey?

Sometimes, now that I’m getting close to retirement, I get really impatient. The alarm goes off in the dark and I get up, at least an hour before I really want to. It’s cold and quiet as I settle down on the couch with my coffee after feeding the dogs. They curl up, warm beside me, as I balance my laptop in front of me and read. Then, I have to get up and start the day, when all the dogs and I want to do is to stay where we are.

Our train line is getting Skyrail, so buses are replacing trains and the traffic on the roads has increased. Yesterday it was raining and obviously many people decided they’d drive into work instead. My usual 45-minute commute blew out to 75 minutes. My couch and the dogs were looking pretty darned enticing, I don’t mind telling you! I made it to my period 1 class with only 3 minutes to spare. I was doing some very creative shortcuts through the back streets to be able to get to work on time.

My challenge in these last couple of years before I retire is to keep my eyes on the good things. The little things that happen every day that makes me coming into work worthwhile. I’ll have decades of lolling on the couch, having easy starts to my days, so I should rein in my impatience and focus instead on the people I work with and the fun things that happen.

Fortunately, this job is one where good things happen every day. Not bad, hey?