- Be in February - When my friend Joan lived in the UK, she used to call this month "Slit-your-wrists-February". After a couple of months of the cold and not being outside much, now I've hit February I'm so over it and know that I still have weeks until it's going to start getting warmer.
- Be a Tuesday - I have my least favourite high school class on Tuesdays. By half-way through the lesson, I feel the need to check their pulse, by the end, I feel the need to check mine. While on Mondays I have my least favourite junior high school class, I have my best high school one the same day, so they even out. On Tuesdays, they are all kind of duds.
- Be a rainy day - not only is it cold, grey and dreary but it also means you can't ride your bike to work, so have to leave early to walk there in time.
- Be tired due to not enough sleep and nightmares the night before due to stress.
- Start your day writing tests.
- Start your first class breaking up a play fight just in time to stop a kid's head being split open. This is after you've already yelled at them to stop. Yell at them again and hurt your throat.
- Notice that the curtains in your classrooms and teachers room are the same colour as what you imagine what body odor would be if it had a colour.
- Have a series of high school presentations that are so bad you feel your very life essence being sucked out of you. The worst, going for ten minutes and you realise at the end, you have no idea what they were talking about.
- Resist the temptation to slap a kid across the head for laughing at a student during his good presentation.
- Be cold despite the fact that you're wearing your mountain-climbing long thermal underwear under your jeans, two pairs of long woolen socks, disposable, stick-on "sock warmers", a thermal under-shirt, a long-sleeved turtle neck shirt, a vest and a lined woolen coat. AND you're in your teacher's room.
- Record two listening tests and be so cold in the recording room you can no longer feel the tip of your nose or your fingers despite the fact that you're wearing the above plus a down-filled jacket.
- Have a pile of marking sitting in front of you that you know you should be doing even though all you really want to do is curl up and go to sleep.
How to make your bad day a little better
- Use your brand new, thermal lunch box for the first time and have a yummy warm lunch at work.
- Get handmade cookies and chocolates as an early Valentine's Day present from a student.
- Have a student give an inspiring presentation about his time at the World Scout Jamboree and how meeting other non-native English speakers who didn't care about the mistakes they made with the language made him feel more confident in speaking.
- Know that you have a Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Brownie Mix at home that a friend brought back from Guam for you. Plan to make them tonight and surprise your husband when he gets home.
How's your day going?
