I was never meant to live under the rules of others. It is my character flaw. I walk to my own drummer.

It's Tuesday, right?

A day between storm one and storm two and a week before storm three?

I thought so.

I successfully turned in my dossier yesterday and went to campus to teach (only to have the University cancel classes three minutes before my 2 pm class).

I returned home to shovel for two hours and created a syllabus for a potential summer gig I'm trying for in June (one that excites me out of state).

I watched Syracuse win and then it hit me, I'm tired and I didn't know what to post. That is when I found this cartoon.

When I was writing my letter to my colleagues for the dossier, I explained that I'm fried, exhausted, and ready to burn out, but that I can't imagine doing work  I find more enjoyable and worthwhile than what I'm doing right now. I also noted how higher education affords me many more privileges, including the fact that I worked just as hard in my high school classroom, but faced a job that was 150X's more impossible to accomplish. Whenever I get slightly close to complaining at my new life in higher education, I remember what it was like as a secondary school teacher. At least now I sleep (occasionally) and don't have 150 lives running through my brain 24/7. Now, I live with a different stress, but it's a tolerable one and I am thankful to be where I am. Still, I respect what I once did and feel an obligation to educate others in higher education. Our complaints should be minimal - teaching K-12 is much more difficult and has a lot less respect.

Then I thought about why I left. It was because the CCSS were coming and new authorities had no respect for creativity and individuality. They were like the bosses in the cartoon above - no sense of human soul.  I also began to think about how many jobs I could have that would totally put me over the edge, including anything that would limit me to a cubicle under the authority of someone telling me what to do.

No, I need to be on my own path making possible what I know can be achieved. I need to be my own boss...even having to do the dossier thing is far more tolerable than what other occupations enforce. It's a lot. It's not easy. But at least my brain has been left free and I can continue to create.