It's BTS Season and I'm Not Partaking

Back.To.School.

Apparently we've been in back to school mode since the first week of July because that's when I saw the first ads for back to school shopping.  I didn't get out of school until June 27th, so back to school anything the first week of July was nothing but a joke to me.

I realize that some parts of the country get out of school in the wee hours of spring, like at the beginning of May, so for them, July 1st is a reasonable time to think about going back to school.  If your first day of school is August 6th, and I know some people for whom this is actually reality.

But now we are in full BTS mode and I can't escape it anywhere.  Not on TV, not in the newspaper and certainly not online.

All this BTS B.S. is causing me to feel a little bit anxious that I'm not ready.

But that's because I don't have to be ready until September.  You remember that month?  The month when everyone used to go back to school in the old days?  Back when everyone got out in June and everyone started in September?

We New Englanders are old fashioned like that, staying out of school until Labor Day or just before.

Hearing back to school this and back to school that is causing me some unsettling dreams.  I dreamed the other night that a man who was part Danny DeVito, part Ed Asner (Lou Grant) was my principal and I was in hot water with him.  When I tried to talk to him he blew me off and told me to make an appointment, which wasn't going to be possible, no matter what I did.  He made me so furious, I woke up irate.

It's also making me feel like every time I hop online, I need to start finding good suggestions for things to do to make my room better or make my teaching better or cute.  I'm not cutesy when it comes to what I have my students do, but when I see so many things on blogs or pinterest, I start to panic that I don't like to do cute and should want to.

But I don't want to because that's not what teaching is about, for me.  I want students to actually know things, not just make cutesy projects to take home for fun.

Nothing can be as bad as the sad, sad state of my new classroom at this time last year and at least I have an image of how my room will be set up and what I will be doing.  I've been in to drop things off and talk to our secretary about budget stuff, and it feels like a running school now.  Nothing like last year when we were in the land of boxes and no one knew up from down and it was so unsettling.

So, while everyone is running out to buy school clothes and pencils and computers, I'm going to close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and keep having summer.  Savoring every moment until I'm back into that wild machine that is the routine of school and everything that comes with it.

And now if you'll excuse me, I think I hear my hammock calling.