Energy-saving times

Apparently the mid-winter break that I am greatly appreciating at the moment has some non-conventional origins (see NYT article). *As a side note, did you know that this was a local, NYthing? According to some NJ sources, this break does not exist! Sure explains some confusion when my friends receive calls/texts from me a) in the middle of the night-"Why are you still awake?" and b) in the middle of the day-"Shouldn't you be teaching the little people now?"* In short, it was a way to save energy (and therefore $$), since it meant that thermostats could be turned down (although with the weather lately, this is probably unnecessary), the system could save on ridiculously-priced gas, etc. Who knew?! I'd like to extend this energy-saving philosophy beyond sheer thriftiness. I'd like to think that the Board of Ed. also calculated that about this time into the year, teachers would deserve a much-needed reboot.

I, for one, have been reaping the benefits of this all-around-energy-saving-mechanism built into our school system. I have been able to attend to little things around the house, such as putting my clothes away as opposed to throwing them in an every-growing pile of my things consisting of anything from clothes to books, doing laundry (I might've worn the same pair of pants to work for 2-3 days the week before), cleaning the bathroom (done out of obligation, not desire), tinkering around on the piano, tending to my garden by proactively weeding and ridding the lawn of bunches of onion grass, and even making a noble attempt at exercising (that's right folks, apparently nice weather+free time=no excuse to not go running, though I'm sad to say that the high school track is STILL under construction, 8 months later. FOR WHAT REASON? UNNECESSARY. Will have to settle with damaging body and running on concrete-inquire within for reasons why I hate running on concrete.). Why have I chosen to list out what, to you, are the mundane details of my day-to-day activities of the week? To rub my excess time in your face? I think not. But rather, to express how truly grateful I am for this midwinter break. I was just telling my mom's friend how surprisingly energized I am, on this gloomy Friday afternoon, despite it being Friday and have done a variety of otherwise incredibly energy-consuming tasks. That's when I realized that there was a stark contrast between me on vacation and me on a typical Friday-self, sleep-deprived, dehydrated, and cranky and unwilling to do anything outside of my school obligations.

I'm hereby am making it my mission (and I encourage you other educators out there) to devote at least 30 min. a day to forcing myself to do something that I may not want to do in the moment, but know that will be helpful for the future (short-term OR long-term), and something that I want to do, regardless of how much my id (I think that's the correct term...some pysch major I was!) protests. This will hopefully lead to more maximization of time and more opportunity to spend precious vacation days doing other, more exciting things, as opposed to catching up and compensating for what has been ignored for the past month or so). This will be particularly important this coming month, as it's a full month of no vacation days. Brace yourselves, educators!