This explains a lot. It's not only not in my imagination, it's in The New York Times. Here's a tale for all you Potter fans out there. I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I had procured the library's copy of The Half-Blood Prince for a student who was dying to read it, even though we were not lending books anymore, really, because of the library closing. She's a reader, but not particularly a reader of English, and I told her at one point that she could keep it til the end of the school year, if she needed to. Really, a lovely girl. Anyway, she brought the book back yesterday and said she'd finished it.
"Oh!" I gushed. "Didn't you love it?"
And with a horrified look, she said "No!"
Uh, right. Now I remember how the book ends. So I clarified, and said how much I just loved being lost in the whole Harry universe, and she agreed with me on that one. She'll be a senior when the next one comes out, so hopefully we can have a good talk after that.
I'm taking yet another day off of work tomorrow -- really, sometimes it feels like I'm out every other day -- to take K to the train yet again. Oh, I think I said that already. You know, I keep track of the days I take off, and I've actually only been sick three days this year, and one of those was last week when I went to work and the nurse sent me home. This is probably the healthiest year I've ever had, which is ironic because I mostly feel like crap, but not stay-at-home-sick crap. I was all cold-y and sick for a week, but it was, of course, vacation week between Christmas and New Year's. I've taken sick days this year to get the furnace fixed and to have a mammogram and for the medical marathon not long ago where I went to three doctors' appointments in one day, and of course, multiple forays to the train station. I was having this discussion with someone the other day: is it nobler in the mind to take no sick days ever, or to use up what they give you? (Which, in our case, is 10 days per school year plus 3 personal days, all of which accrue as sick days if you don't use them up in a given year.) I know plenty of people for whom it is a badge of honor to take no sick days, ever. In one extreme case, someone who retired two years ago after 35 years teaching retired with ... are you ready? 349.5 unused sick days. Once, I believe, he was hurt in school and was sent to the hospital before the day was over, and that was his only used half-sick day. He came in when he was sick, he came in when he had Bell's Palsy, he came in once, I hear, on a Friday when he was having a colonoscopy the next day, and if you've ever had one, you can imagine what that means. You're wondering now what kind of prize he got for being such a good little boy and never taking a day off in 35 years, even when his children were born. His prize was that he got the same pension as anyone else who worked for 35 years and retired with no sick days. When I retire after 32 and half years there, I expect to have no unused sick days. Of course, I took all of my accrued sick days three times: once when I had each baby, and once when I had the brain tumor. I've got about 40 saved up at the moment. I expect to take many when I actually have no library to work in, and few once the new library opens, at least for the rest of that school year. You're wondering if I feel guilty because I take these days off. Of course I do. Why else would I write all this nonsense about it?
Today's sad library tale is that I finished cleaning out the supply closet. It's empty. The thing is that the display case, which is quite large, is only accessible via the supply closet, and I have spent plenty of time over the years putting one thing or another in there. (I have pictures at school; I'll scan and post some of them, they're cute.) When I was all done today and I took out the poster that was hanging by itself in the display -- it was the Pastor Neimoller quotation: "First they came for the Jews ..." -- I realized that this part of my work there was completely over; no more displays, never going in the supply closet again. Sounds dumb. The display case is actually five feet high by five feet wide. How do I know this? Because I can stand up inside it, if I take my shoes off and lean my head over a little. I have done this plenty of times, because it was the only way to get stuff tacked up in there. I used to say that I only got the job because I was the only applicant who fit in there, and that what I wanted in my next life was a display case that opened from the front. Little did I know that what I really wanted was just to keep having a library. I don't think the new one has a display case at all, because it was designed by morons.
Okay, now I do sound sad, and I'm not, despite this last bit. I found cool stuff in the supply closet, too. More, perhaps, on Thursday, when I'm back there again. I'll take pictures.
