Oh, my head!

[lunadelcorvo]

About seven years ago, I was in and out of the hospital for a month on account of, of all things, an ear infection. It was a doozie, no question. That sucker tore right through most of my outer ear, worked its way through the labyrinth, and stopped just short of the cochlea. I lost a good chunk of bone to that beast. I also lost roughly 90% of my hearing on one side.

I mention this because today I realize the loss of 90% of my hearing on one side was not nearly enough.

You see, we often have to cover classes for out-of-school teachers. For me, on this day, that means I am sitting in a large room with two dozen beginning band students and as many instruments (from a tuba to drums and everything in between) ineptly (if earnestly) blatting at me and I cannot describe the headache.


My nerves are already frazzled to the very edge, and never have I wished more sincerely to be fully, completely deaf.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Oh lord I remember hsving to 'cover' for absent colleagues.

It made me aware of how hard earned the salary of early years teachers is!

[lunadelcorvo]

Honestly, some days, not enough money in the WORLD for this job....

The flu is bad enough that we're doing 'remote learning' tomorrow and Monday. In other words, we all stay home in our jammies and the admins pretend 'work' gets done. In this context,'bad enough is 20% or more teacher absences, so we have that going for us.

Still, thank goodness! While this group is still SO much better than last year's (not one student with an arrest record or ankle monitor; that's a plus!) they have been getting on my last nerve the last week or so. I think they feel the tension everyone else is feeling, even if most of them are pretty oblivious to current events.