"Discombobulated.........................."

This will be my tenth year working in Elementary Special Education. I love the kids, but dealing with all the expectations simply assumed of one as part of the assignment gets to be a little more nettlesome each time around. Tuesday was but one more fly in the ointment. Our annual salary is determined by an established number of school days plus twenty-four hours of classes, stretched over twelve months and dispersed to us bi-weekly. They provide a variety of courses. Signing up for them is our decision; but, always it seems, things change at the last minute and, often, one is left trying to raise Lazarus from the dead. Case in point: Yesterday and today would have given me half of my quota, a choice made in May and a verified finality until I was merely two blocks from walking into the facility where it was supposed to take place, lunch packed, work traffic and highway construction conquered, gasoline close to four dollars a gallon, when my cell-phone went off, a friend letting me know the event had been cancelled. Stopping in at the front office, I learned that the building was, and has been, under repairs, and no one, anywhere, knew anything at all about anything. Now, trying to find other possibilities in an agenda where there are almost no seats yet available is like panning for gold on a claim long ago emptied by others. I’m getting too old for this…. Naah; maybe when this calendar trip is done. Fall Break, Thanksgiving and Christmas Break, Spring Break, and recess all await me. Art, Computer, Music, P.E., and Library call to me. Pinned to a small corkboard in front of me are snapshots of nearly every child I have been blessed to help in some way since my retirement from the railroad. God, I believe, opened the door for this job; and I believe He’ll let me know when it’s over……