Thursday, March 24, 2011

SHUT UP! I'M FINDING MY INNER PEACE!!!

Scene: Wednesday night yoga class. About 20 students.

Act 1: Cell phone goes off. It's a pleasant tune...Purcell's "Trumpet Tune." It's against the wall behind me. No one claims it. Eventually it stops ringing.

<5 minutes go by>

Act 2: Same Cell. Same tune. Same result.

<5 minutes>

Act 3: Same Cell. Same tune. Student in the middle of the class turns on her mat, stomps across the room, snatches the phone from her bag and stalks to the door. Before the door finishes closing I hear this violent stage whisper: "WHAT??? Stop calling!!! I'm in YOGA for God's sake! I'll call you back." She comes back into the room, puts the phone in the bag and goes back to her mat.

<10 minutes. Or so..>

Cell phone vibrates and stops.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time - Painful Patriotic Pancakes

Suck it Uuuuup!

The kids (and adults) at school have been very very tired these past several days. Ever since we "fell back" they are dropping heads onto their desks in every classroom. I myself had a couple of mornings where I allowed myself another hour of sleep. But I also had one morning where I got up on time and dozed off during a long hold in my yoga practice, and then caught myself snoring during meditation!

"Suck it up" seems to be the most-often-used phrase these days. Our nurse told me she has sleepy kids coming to the clinic saying they "don't feel good and just want to lay down." After a drawn-out argument where she tried to explain that we don't have naptime in school, she finally told the last kid to suck it up.

As she related this to me in the staff workroom that day, another teacher who was standing at the copy machine turned around and said she used the same phrase earlier in the day. "I told the student 'we're all tired,'" she related to us. "Then I said we pretty much all have to just suck it up."

I haven't been tired during the day, thank goodness. Fewer things are more miserable than being that sleepy at your desk. But I sure will be glad when the light comes on outside a little earlier.