Day 33: Scarface and other dangers of teaching...
Warning: this post is NOT for the faint of heart.It's a well known fact that people who work in offices are exposed to the constant threat of paper cuts. Many have unfortunately fallen victim to the sharp edge of a piece of paper as they were trying to pass on to someone else work that was assigned to them.
Of course email has been a great factor in reducing the incidence of paper cuts, and this has forced band-aid companies all across the nation to downsize and even cut production - very tragic.
Well, I've had my share of paper cuts trying to push away work that was being thwarted my way - but never, NEVER, did I incur a paper cut elsewhere than on my hands.
This morning had to be different...
Perhaps this is because I was feeling a little stressed out because I left the house later than usual, traffic was as bad as usual, and I'm still as constipated as ever.
Oh yeah, and I needed to make photocopies before first period because the girls had a test to write.
As I parked and quickly jumped out of the van, I swung over my left shoulder my lunch bag, my school bag and my hand bag.
And since at this point I was looking pretty much like a lopsided donkey, I had no quams about balancing a stack of tests I had corrected over the week-end with my free hand and my chin.
And that's when it happened.
Sudden burning feeling. Very rapid, no time to react or to stop it. A double paper cut on my chin. It still burns right now, 12 hours later.
Lesson learned today: not only can teaching cause
1) Colds in the summer time (see Day 14 in the September archive)
2) frustration (because the kids don't listen and/or don't study)
3) high blood pressure (from trying to keep your cool when a vulcano of frustration is mounting in class because they JUST.WON'T.SHUT.UP.WHILE.I'M.TALKING)
4) constipation (no need to elaborate on this one - just check out this post)
5) disturbances in one's TV schedule (because of the darn corrections!)
Teaching can also cause facial lacerations of the most painful kind.
Even before you set foot into the school.
Scary.
