Zen Laziness

Arrived late to work today. It was a morning when, for whatever reason, getting up and being on time just didn't seem that important. It might have been kind of a Zen thing or maybe an eternal perspective thing -- you know, "Not making it in on time will not affect your place in the Celestial Kingdom, grasshopper." Then again, maybe it was just sheer laziness. Suzanne has felt a little under the weather lately and I was up a little late watching an unexpectedly long Japanese film for class. Maybe it wasn't Zen -- maybe I just didn't want to drag my butt out of bed.

Either way, I got here a little before nine, all ready to teach at 9:20. But then I found out that for today the students were combined into one class. This means I went from teaching four times today to teaching once. When I figured that out, I closed my classroom door for a moment, did a little breakdance of joy, and then opened the door again. (Come on, who hasn't done a breakdance of joy in their life?)

Our math teacher has been on extended vacation in Florida. He takes all of Christmas break (two weeks) and then tacks on another week or so in order to spend time with his kids down in the land of Sunkist oranges. On top of that, he came back with pneumonia and was out on his first scheduled day back as well. So, Mr. Booker and I have been compensating for his absence by teaching half again as often as we normally would. Frankly, not only does it get old putting on my lion-tamer pith helmet and getting out the whip and the chair so regularly for these students, but it's not useful for the class. They need time to process the information that they get, but if they're constantly barraged with new stuff, there's no time for the old to settle in.

So, as a result of my happy schedule change, I'm sitting at my desk at 10 a.m. composing this post instead of explaining the differences between complex and compound sentences. Life is pretty good.

Last night I watched Ozu's Early Spring. It was long and not a lot happened in it. I have another one of his, Tokyo Story, left to watch. It's only 2 hours and 20 minutes but that can be an awful long time to watch black and white subtitles.


Even though my schedule has opened up, I still have e-mail to write, papers to grade, and at least one lesson plan to prepare. Don't cry for me. I'll find things to do.