Despite yesterday's determination to avoid thinking about school, it was on my mind all morning today. Emails with the Colleague and the Chum, as well as a phone call from the Other Chai last night, brought it to the fore, and then, just before I got up this morning, I had my annual Back To School Dream.In this year's dream, the staff was told to report to one of the middle schools in town instead of the high school, due to the construction and lack of parking. (This is a real possibility; I think we did that last year, too.) After the big district-wide meeting, all the teachers were released to go to their own schools and start working on their classrooms.
But I didn't know where to go. Vaguely, I was aware that the high school teachers were told that we couldn't go to our building yet, but not given an alternative, and there were scads of us wandering around the middle school. I walked down the long corridor to the end -- it was much longer in the dream than it really is -- looking for the library there. The teachers in that school were setting up all kinds of displays and things in the corridors (which were narrow) right outside their rooms, in a more elementary-school sort of way. I got all the way to the end, finally, and turned to walk back. Then things were more stark, just a long, plain corridor with brick walls on the inside. (The long corridor of the elementary school I attended had walls like that, so it's possible that in the dream I was in that building then.) But I kept walking, finally remembering that the library (in the middle school) is upstairs. What I remember most about the dream was that I had no place to go, no room of my own to work in, no work of my own to do.
So, this morning, I've been writing out my retirement speech in my head, which is something I do when I'm so pissed off at those morons I work for that I fantasize about letting it all out then, which will be, if nothing else, my last chance to do so. Let's hope it's an effective outlet. Would I really do it? Maybe, if I'm still pissed off enough and if I can make it funny.
Later ...
I guess it was a good outlet, because I'm not thinking about it anymore, even though my day's travels have taken me past the building twice. So, done with that.
It would appear that although I made peace long ago with all aspects of my brain surgery and resultant hearing loss, I have never quite been able to accept that I cannot get all that I need to make it livable on a day-to-day basis. The hearing aids are an ongoing battle, which you certainly know if you've read here ever before. The headphones struggle is another one.
I go through stages with this one. Most recently, I wear regular iPod earbuds, with these adaptations: there's a little cap fitted over the bud which makes it fit better in my ear, and the right earbud, as functional for me as a tail would be, is bunched up in a little plastic holder, along with all the excess wire. To use these at all, I have to take off my left hearing aid and put that someplace safe. And of course, if anything important comes through the right earbud, I don't hear it. Stereo, in its true form, is out for me in this life.
What I need to do is simulate stereo. Preferably without taking my hearing aids off, because that's a pain. Which means that earbuds are out.
I have been on yet another Headphones Quest since last week. First, I picked up a set with earpads that hook over your ears, but have no headband. These were even comfortable despite already having glasses and hearing aids hanging behind my ears. The problem was that the right one was smack over my ear, which is not where sounds inputs for me on that side. I need it to hug just over my ear, where the microphone on the hearing aid is, if I want to hear anything through it. So, back to Target with those. I realized that I need something with a headband.
Bad enough I'm half deaf; I have also inherited my mother's pin-head. Now, I'm not Zippy or anything, but headphones and the like just fall right off my head. I tried looking for headphones made for children -- preferably with mouse ears -- but there ain't no such animal.
I went to Circuit City before and bought three sets of headphones, making sure that I could return them (because I've had problems returning there before), and got to work. Two terrible, one okay. Hope that puts this to rest for awhile.
I never did get to the two major things I had to do in the house today; I was out obsessing over headphones and foundation garments instead. Ah, foundation garments. For another day.
