Some mornings Kevin has…

Some mornings Kevin has to come and drag me awake when it's my turn to take over; that's always a bad sign for the day, as I tend to be groggy and exhausted for a lot of it, which is particularly bad on a teaching day. Teaching three classes in a row is physically tiring -- at least for me, given that I tend to stand up most of the time I'm teaching, walk around the front of the room, write on the board, sing songs, do dances -- okay, not so much of the last two, but really, I work pretty hard to keep my energy levels up during class so that I can better communicate my enthusiasm for the material to my students.

That's supposedly one of the most important ways of motivating students -- letting them see how you love this thing they're studying (that they may come into class having not so much affection for). And I do love it, thankfully (Joyce and Yeats today, woohoo!), so I try to pass that along. But it's tiring. Teaching really is a lot like acting, so if you can imagine performing in a play for an hour and a half, then taking a break for lunch, then doing another hour and a half, then walking to another location across campus, and then performing for one more hour and a half -- well, that's what it's like. And doing the same material over and over again doesn't help.

But there are some mornings where I actually wake up on my own, having slept enough. Like today. And oh, the day is so much better. Still tiring by the time I get home, and Thursdays are particularly rough because Kevin teaches in the evening, so when I get home, I stay on duty with the kids from 4 - 8, and then at 8, I go straight to bed. Essentially, a 15 - 16 hour work day. But sleep makes it possible.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying, "Dearest Anandan, thank you for sleeping until 5:15 today. (Instead of your more typical 4:30, or 4:00, or [shudder] 3:30.) Mama loves you so much."