End of Summer Educator Blues

I doubt the words schooler actually exists, but it's my blog and if I want to make up words, so be it. 

...About my photos--lack of photos, that is. Somehow, I have severed the link between my photos and this blog. I was messing around with my settings last week and must've done something stupid while trying to make my settings more secure. Looks like I made things too secure. I'll work on it. But, for now use your imagination for illustration purposes.
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Beginning of August.... it starts.

Actually, it starts on the Fourth of July. A hot summer day. A holiday. A celebration. The end of Summer. 

Wait, the end of Summer? Isn't it just getting started?

Not for the teacher. July Fourth is the beginning of the end.

There is nothing worse than a teacher on the Fourth of July. Well, maybe a teacher who is anticipating a snow day and it doesn't happen, but other than that, there is nothing worse. It is known far and wide that July 4th signals that the summer is half over. Non-teachers look at this day as a holiday, a day of celebration and fireworks.

Not teachers. It is a day of terror. 

I am married to a teacher so I speak as an authority. Since she's been teaching for 35 years, my resume it quite extensive. I dread the Fourth almost as much as she does, as I know the muttering and whining and complaining will be the feature, not the festivities.

As at least three-quarter of our friends are teachers, that makes for a lot of commiserating. My advice to them is: Stay in the here and now, people!

Once the Fourth of July has passed, the next hurdle is when stores put the back-to-school displays out for all to see and the back-to-school ads start showing up. Oh, the pain! Insult to injury. You can tell when someone is a teacher and they enter Wally World, only to run smack-dab into the school supplies now placed at the front of the store. There is a guttural, primal scream. Blood spurting from eyes, followed by the fetal ball on the floor next to the greeter. Oh, how the wife hates seeing school supplies.

Any other time of the year, she loves school supplies. Not during the summer. It's a bad omen. Might as well give up and declare summer over.

Teacher friends: I am not making comment on your summer vacation. The teachers I know did not take a teaching job so they could have summers off. It was part of the package. You work like dogs all year. I begrudge you nothing about having summers off. I am glad for you. I see you work during the summer, whether it's preparing for the next year, pinning classroom ideas on their Pin Boards, teaching summer school or working a second job (of which I hope none of you were doing)--you have earned their keep. The teachers I know love their jobs, even those counting the hours until retirement. They are educators. 

For you, I honor you, I write for yo "The End of Summer Educator Blues"

The school bell rings
The year is over
Grades posted, classroom emptied.
Summer vacation has arrived.
Time to relax and to have fun...
Just a few minutes later, the Fourth of July arrives.
Painful and depressing
Lamenting--how it is possible that a month is so short?
The speed of summer time hours is so cruel.

The Fourth of July passes.
School supplies surface.
In an instant--just a blink of an eye
August arrives.
The blues cloud the remaining hot, sunny days.
Friends are frolicking in the summer beauty
The schooler--the educator not frolicking anywhere.
Distracted by the turn of the calendar
Summer can be no more.
August First:
My summer continues
August First:
Teachers' summer crashes down like a tidal wave.
The end of summer educator blues blanket you,
smother you,
sadden you.
I raise my fist in the air and shout,
"Stay strong, school warriors!
I chuckle
I cheer
Until next year...
....well, until the two week Christmas break....
....well, until the next unscheduled, beloved snow day....
Summer blues washed away
by new students, new markers, new teacher institute topics, new year...
New you.
Blank slate for a new year.
Wash away those blues.
Everything is back to normal.
Labor Day has arrived....

Welcome back to School.
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May you have a most wonderful year. Kiss kiss.