Occasionally Annoyed

I can't believe I have wound up in this kind of relationship. We're so off and on I don't even know if we're going out. One minute you're lovely and promising me the moon, the next it's like I don't matter to you at all. You wait until I've finally given up on you and then swan past distributing rosebuds to make me fall in love with you again. I get drunk on the possibilities but five minutes later I'm condemning you to hell. How did a girl like me end up in a fling with you?

Well, now I have a confession to make. I've been flirting. I swore I never would, that it was totally against my principals [sic*] but this week I came THIS close to cheating on you. Ha! So that got you going, did it? Well, you're not the only education department in the sea, OK? I'm standing up for myself. Start treating me nice or I'll go and get myself de-heathened just so I can fling myself at that nice Catholic school up the coast.

There are few de-motivating factors like two months without pay. On Tuesday afternoon I was at my desk confronted with the vulgar prospect of 140 unmarked Year 8 drafts - Benvento a Hotel Chris, albergo rinovato de quinche stele - seriously considering the idea of putting them all in the middle of the lunch table, opening the doors and turning the fans on. Awarding anything that makes it to the oval an A.

But don't get too excited. Three days in a funk, huddled in those bitter little playground duty conversations I despise with all the other teachers whose contracts haven't been extended to the end of the school year and the tables are not so much turned as suspended from the ceiling. It's happened again. I'll follow my kids into senior - no, wait, there's a senior LOTE teacher being transferred in. I'll take the junior years, then - no wait, we're leaving them with Unqualified Openly Anti-Italian Mad Woman. Go and find us someone for the immersion program, would you? No, wait - you're a teacher. Couldn't we use you? Wasn't the old Italian teacher a marvel? We think so little of you we're going to get rid of you as soon as legally possible. No, wait, would you like to CO-ORDINATE THE ENTIRE PROGRAM NEXT YEAR?

Oh, but we can't confirm you have a job next year. Not until Monday.

* geddit yet?