The Last Wednesday 12-Hour Day

Today is a 12-hour day schedule at my school job. We have these days every so often where we are required to stay for longer than our contracted hours to accommodate parent/teacher conferences or professional development. When these days happen on Wednesdays, it is always challenging for me since I have a Wednesday evening job already and cannot do the full 12 hours on Wednesday evenings. We have one last 12-hour day on our calendar, and that is on a Thursday, so I will be able to stay for the entire time on that night.

The number of evenings we have to stay late have decreased significantly with our new administration. We used to have 10 of these nights per year! TEN! It was ridiculous, and we put an end to that since our school district only has 4 of these nights as part of our contract time. We had 6 extra night obligations that no one else in the district had to do. We now match the district expectations, and that is very helpful, especially for me.

I am not an evening person. At about 2pm, every day, my mental facilities droop into stupor and require time away from others to refresh. When we have 12-hour days, I have to fight against my natural tendencies and go to professional development or trainings or lectures about things that rarely have much to do with me or my job. With my need for less interaction and the requirement of more interaction, I tend to be angry and a bit surly in these afternoon to evening meetings, discussions, and lectures. I just do not like these late days, and I wish it wasn't something that we had to do...but, we do, so complaining about it does nothing but help me express something that I want to express.

So, after a long day with six group sessions, I have to head into a room where I will listen to the head of the clinical team talk about some optional meetings we have been offered, then one of my co-workers talking about a conference he attended, and then we have some "work" time. My work is done, so I have little to nothing to do for that time. I am hoping that my administrator will tell us that we can work from home on those "work" tasks because then I can head out to my next job without having to take personal time away from my hours. I have worked significantly more hours than I am contracted to work, so I will not need to make up the time by manufacturing more "work" to do once I get back to my home.

I wrote three original songs yesterday, and I piggybacked new lyrics to another song yesterday as well. I have not turned these into TMEs yet, but I will be doing that tomorrow and on Friday. I have composed the music, written the notes out on sheet music paper, and have finished the lyrics for all of the songs. It was something I made myself do yesterday, and I am happy with how things turned out!

The songs are based in encouraging movement and choices. I have decided to make some of my groups do lots more movement than they have been doing lately. We just need to wiggle more so our bodies can exhaust before we try to use our brains.

Well, that's it for me today. Time to take my shower, get gas for the car, head to work #1 and then head to work #2, then stagger back home. See you tomorrow - maybe!