Winter is Coming

Double meaning there. First, snow started falling about 6pm, and by 8pm the announcement came that county schools are closed. So I can rest comfortably, take a lazy day tomorrow to smooth out the week's lessons. Second meaning has to do with the HBO series, A Game of Thrones, set to debut on April 17. Tough choice there - subscribe to HBO, or wait for the DVD.

A very unsettling day. Immense headache before noon - the kind where it hurt from my neck up the back of my head and I felt nauseated. Took pain medicine and lay down - couldn't even watch TV but had to close my eyes and just listen. Finally went away, but they are more common lately, either due to stress, side effects from the Prozac or increasing pressure on my pinched nerve in my neck. I don't want to think about the necessity of surgery on that disk in my neck - I hate surgery, well, actually I hate the anesthesia - I get sick coming out of it. Last year the doctor told me it was inevitable, and I should come back when it affected my quality of life. Hmmmm. Then in 2010 I had insurance with one carrier, CIGNA, but with three different school systems. Which means they did a lot of passing the buck and refusing to pay for covered items, and we get calls from collection agencies. The doctors know the game CIGNA is running, too, but the schools pay the least for it, and therefore don't give employees a choice. I almost want to call them, connect with a dedicated supervisor and request a summary of all claims under my account, their status and CIGNA's reason for refusal to pay - in one case they keep saying they need something from the doctor's office, but they have sent it three times already (both the doctor and we keep records, something the insurance company seems not to do). As if they would agree, or even help.

Walking the fine line between thinking and being. I need to let things go more, and just enjoy time away from work. But at the same time, I can't just let it all slide. I haven't quite found the happy middle ground where I can get the work done (all that "extra" invisible work that teachers do during weekends and nights that people conveniently forget about when they marginalize the profession) then relax. I am driven by the foolish idea that if I could put enough effort into it, the kids would just fall into the plan. I had some great papers today - several of my students paid attention and did the quiz problems just the way we practiced, which was more than I could have hoped for. But they are the exceptions. And I drive myself too hard, trying to be the best, to satisfy an insatiable ideal...which naturally goes back to indifferent parents and a boy trying to be better than his best to get their attention and approval, which never happened. But still I shove against that ideal thinking (incorrectly) that my present efforts can somehow change the past instead of just re-playing it.