Postcards from the Funny Farm

In the past 2 weeks I have been saying to myself, and asking my wife to say to herself:

“I will be a good person, even when other people around me are not.”

I’ve had good reason. I have had the following things going on (just to name a few):

1. A woman who passes by me multiple times every day at work without even saying hello -including the times when I say hello.

2. Colleagues lately who have asked me to do things for them who do not say thank you or offer any form of recomepensatory offer.

3. People who haven’t done what they said they would.

4. Someone smashed our bumper at the hotel parking lot and left no note. Damage estimate is around $400 and our deductible is $500.

5. The electric back window of my Jeep stopped rolling up a couple days ago and they want $300 bucks to fix it! We found the part on eBay for $40! Unbelievable.

. . . and so on. It’s been one of those months.

Anyway, thankfully like a beacon from heaven in the Michaelangelo painting above, something happened today that truly restored my faith in humanity. The following is excerpted from the full post over at my teaching blog, My Life in the Classroom:

There are some aspects to teaching that I am sure are the same as any job. One of them being when you get sick, others have to fill in for you. Now in the normal school year there are substitute teachers to take over your class while you are out. In summer school, they are non-existent. It’s up to you and your colleagues to come together and make some sort of plan B when you are out. Someone indescribably helped me today, and she didn’t have to. That’s what made it so awesome. Since I’ve been suffering a nasty stomach flu and headache the past couple days, I figured it would have been over today as I drug myself together, grabbed my coffee and went to teach like any other day. I was wrong about it being over. I found myself in the middle of a lesson on “multiple” meaning words and starting to feel as if I would see my breakfast a “multiple” of times. During the recess juncture with it being 100 degrees outside, I shared how I was feeling with my counterpart and she virtually insisted that she take my class of 13 (summer school classes are smaller) and have both hers and mine for the remainder of the day. My colleague is a new teacher, only 25 years old (relatively young for teachers) and yet she was all-to-eager to help me get through this. Note: I am one who hates to ask for help. Call it macho, or whatever, it’s just the way I am programmed. [quote]What my colleague did is an example of true unselfishness.[/quote] I really appreciated the time this afternoon to sleep and now I feel 100% better to handle the day tomorrow. I am in her debt, even though she said it was no problem. Hers is the kid of attitude everybody should have with her/his colleagues. I know I will be happy to do the same for her or anyone in the future I find out isn’t feeling well and needs to go home for the day. While I hate to be out of the classroom, sometimes when you are really ill, I think it is definitely better for one to take time away.