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Fulfilling a parental role means that there's a lot less time to think about what I'm doing and how successfully I'm doing it, and a lot more time just spent on the doing. Driving her to school, picking her up from school, driving her to dance class, picking her up from dance class, driving her to counselling, picking her up from counselling, driving her to visits with her mother, picking her up from visits with her mother, driving her to drama class, picking her up from drama class... getting her up for school, helping her do her hair, helping her put in her earrings, helping her with her homework, helping her feed her cat and clean his litter, helping her feed her hamster and clean his cage, helping her clean her room, helping her do her laundry, cooking her meals, making her lunches, washing her dishes, tucking her in, telling her stories, listening to her stories, answering her questions ... ...

and when I'm not doing all that, sometimes I sit and wonder how I'm doing at it. But most of the time not. Most of the time I just do it.


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This morning the power went out during first period. It was about nine o'clock and we had just finished watching a performance by three boys who did not know their lines very well. A typical Tuesday morning in my world. And then suddenly the theatre was pitch black. My first thought was that some twit had done something to the light board because twits sometimes do things to the light board, plunging us into darkness. But when I groped my way over to the light switch I found it did nothing. A look out into the hallway confirmed that the entire school was dark.

The kids, of course, began to giggle and scream and run around in the dark until I threatened them with painful death.

The back up generator eventually kicked in and gave us one florescent light to see by, a light which cast an eerie greenish glow over the faces of the children who were now almost hysterical with glee at the prospect of a blackout. Cell phones appeared everywhere as if by magic and thousands of phone calls and text messages were sent and received.

Administration eventually came to advise us that we were to stay put and not change classes. We sat.

A mere two hours later the superintendent of schools finally granted us permission to dismiss our students and although they'd been clamouring to go home for hours, now they dawdled through the halls and required pushing out the doors. The staff, of course, were not permitted to leave. Instead we were threatened with painful death if we so much as considered leaving the building. Our orders were to remain in the school as it grew colder, to sit in the dark without the use of our computers or the benefit of light, and to find something school-related to do. It was a very rewarding experience from a teaching perspective.


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The tyranny of the wheel, to me, has become ... more tyrannical. I look forward to the weekends and I look back on them. I look forward to the end of the work day and I look forward to bedtime. I feel tired all the time. This is the daily grind everyone talks about and I wonder, if we all experience it, why we tolerate it.

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In spite of all of these things, I think my life is improved upon, expanded and stretched in the most positive of ways, by them.


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