Mid-term Break

A MAJOR perk of being a teacher is the time off. I won't pretend otherwise. It's rather spectacular to get approximately 12 weeks off a year, of paid leave.
However, before you all start cursing my luck, let me put it into perspective for you a little: When was the last time you spent 7 hours a day with a child? Now times that by 5 - for every day of the week. Now times that by 13, which is the number of kids that I teach. AND THERE YOU HAVE IT: We teachers DESERVE all the time off that we get!!!

Teaching is draining, and exhausting. You are constantly carrying the energy of an entire room. You have to be strong, supportive, encouraging, patient, loving, firm... all the time. You hold the psyche of an individual in your hands. You can either crush someone's spirit, or make them shine - with a single sentence. It is a COLOSSAL responsibilty, and a COLOSSAL gift. I love what I do, but even I need to recharge sometimes.
Me with my TA and our kids on the last day of school for 2010

And so, when I get even a mere week off from teaching, I RELISH it. I had grand plans to start studying in the break. My coursework packs for my Postgraduate Certificate in Education arrived a few weeks ago, and I keep making myself futile promises of getting to them. I think my excitement started to wane after I unwrapped the package, however. This IS studying, and studying IS hard. I am infinitely excited to start, but I am also painfully lazy and a fantastic procrastinator - my entire University career was something of a fluke, which I owe in large part to simply taking excellent notes in lectures and having an exceptionally good short-term memory when sleep-deprived.
Woohoo!!! My study materials arrive! So exciting!

Anyway. On the first day of the break, I managed to sort everything out: Read the study packs for each of the 7 subjects, get my head around when my assignments are due and what I need to do for each of them, and compile a list of the necessary textbooks that I need to buy and order online (This part is actually harder than it seems: I need to find the books online - of course, they aren't all available at the same place! - then arrange for them to be shipped to my brother in Johannesburg, who in turn will mail them to me to a friend's sister's house in Manila, who will then send them to me here in Boracay. Whew!)

Anyway, that done, I decided to relax. And never quite managed to look at the textbooks again for the rest of the week! What I DID do is read a lot, watch a lot of movies, sleep, cook, and relax. I spent 2 beautiful days at the beach, watching the sun set with good friends and enjoying my island, and went out to our favourite local bar (which is on the beach) where we danced in the moonrise and laughed like children.



I've been back at school for a few days now, and I feel like a new person. Sometimes all you need is 5 days to yourself to feel human again.