Dave’s Midlife Blog

I’m sitting here in my high-school German classroom at the end of another week. It’s about 6:15 PM. I’ve been here in the school since before 8:00 this morning. That makes it…let’s see now…a 10.25-hour workday. That’s how most of my days have been the last two months.

I’m a German teacher outside of Washington, DC, in Loudoun County, Virginia–a county that still offers German at all its high schools and just about all its middle schools. This is a good place to be. The famously wealthy Fairfax County, where I live and where my children graduated high school, is letting German die off slowly and quietly in its schools. (more…)

Since I live in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, I got the benefit of a massive snowstorm this weekend. I’m outside of Washington, and we got hit pretty hard–although nothing like New York City, which had the largest single-day snowfall on record (27 inches in Central Park).

We had heard it was going to snow all day Saturday and into Sunday morning. When nothing much had happened by 7:00 PM on Saturday, my high-school-age daughter and I pretty much gave up on getting a day off for snow.

But while we were sleeping, it snowed like crazy. At the end of it all, we measured about 14 inches on the deck of our house.

Since I’m a schoolteacher, this meant that I had the day off from work yesterday. This is a rare and unpredictable treat in the winter. My wife, who has a “real” career, had to go into Washington to work, but I got to stay home. I podcasted and ordered baseball tickets.

I’m back on the job today, and grateful for the extra day of weekend. I do wish, however, I had spent some of the day sleeping instead of working on projects.

Categories: midlife, teaching