I’m sick again. It’s another cold.
I’ve come to realize that for all of the inherent complexities and uncertainties that teachers face, there are three things that has come to dominant this first year of pedagogic pursuits: fatigue, moments of great, almost blinding satisfaction, and colds.
Students come in tired, stressed, besieged by copious amounts of homework and deadlines, and filled to the brim with germs. The teachers aren’t much better off, with the pressures of maintaining equilibrium in the face of wild, freak-out panic attacks (both students and teachers), bursts of almost bewildering immaturity, and the always tricky balance of providing constructive criticism without crushing a students’ creative spirit.
The school is one big germ factory, and we are perfect hosts.
The strange thing is, I swear teachers get better with age. Some of the older, more seasoned teachers are like human tanks. Their constitutions are hewn from a much mightier stock than us first-year teachers, who are felled by simple colds that seemingly bounce off of the veterans like they were made of galvanized rubber.
I’m going to drink lots of juice, pound back echinacea like it were a sweet liquor, and wallow in vitamin C and tea. There’s just four weeks left before school is out for the year - I hope my constitution can handle it.
