Blogger Therapy

I'm taking a sick day. I have about 17 or so left. I'll never use them all. I do have headache, but it's not overpowering anymore thanks to ibuprofen.

I think the stress of my job has done it to me. When did I become such a weakling? I hardly ever get sick. I rarely lose my temper. I'm struggling lately with the negative thoughts that pop into my head sometimes when I think about work. Thankfully, I'm working through an amazing Beth Moore study on the fruits of the Spirit. God's timing is great on that one!

I'm hoping this "sanity day" helps. I made the mistake of reading my school e-mail this morning and am now upset about what a parent wrote to me. If your child is causing me this much stress I WILL remove him and give him an F! The parent feels I'm singling out his child and that in his opinion removal is "not a viable option." Obviously he doesn't know a damn thing about me, or he would realize I would never do so it it was not absolutely necessary. His child is the reason for at least 2-5 people dropping chorus at the end of the second quarter. I am not being unreasonable here. How is this happening to me?!? I used to think I was a fairly competent teacher, considering of course how little experience I have. E-mail just ruined a perfectly wonderful sick day! Grr...

72 teaching days, 4 of which are early outs... I'm not counting the band trip or honor choir days. 71 actually, since I will DEFINITELY be using my other personal day!!! I sure wish I had the kind of job I could give 2 weeks notice... (I would have been done five months ago!)

If I kept typing, I could include a lot more complaining, but I'm done.

Have you heard of the book Why Zebras don't get Ulcers?

From Wikipedia (so it must be true, haha)

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers written in 1994 by Robert M. Sapolsky, a highly acclaimed professor at Stanford University. The book proclaims itself as a "Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping" on the front cover of its third and most recent edition. The name stems from Sapolsky's insistence that animals out in the wild are less likely to have stress induced by constantly worrying over jobs, relationships, or other fears that plague humans and lead to ulcers, hypertension, decreased neurogenesis and increased hippocampal neuronal atrophy and several other maladies. Sapolsky focuses on the effects of glucocorticoids on the human body. He illustrates how such hormones may be useful to animals in the wild escaping their predators, but the effects on humans, when secreted at high quantities or over long periods of time, are much less desired. Sapolsky walks us through endocrinology's history explaining how the field reacted at times of discovery and how it has changed through the years. Praised as "One of the best science writers of our time," by Oliver Sacks, Sapolsky offers witty footnotes and several anecdotes which make the reading that much more interesting. While most of the book focuses on the biological machinery of the body, the last chapter of the book focuses on self help, an aspect of the book in which many readers are very interested.

I was a bit of a hypochondriac yesterday and called my sister R.N. and told her I was having an irregular heartbeat. Which is probably true. I'm a musician, I know steady beat! It's probably fine. I think I need to exercise more regularly. I promise I'll go to the doctor if it keeps happening. I'm fine now. My heart is just being ignored... Which brings me to my last and final topic for this morning. Friday is "Go Red for Women," so wear red if you like, but more importantly take care of your heart! Advice I should heed as well.

I feel a little better now.

...about five minutes later. I HAD to add this as it made me laugh out loud! I recently thought, "I'll never get a golden apple award for what I've done at Dunkerton. I wonder if there's a rotten apple award?" Come on, that's funny!