Media Mondays: Add some fun

I may be the last person on the face of the planet to have seen this, but it's pretty awesome. Volkswagon decides to make stairs into a piano in order to coerce people into walking instead of using the escalator. Quite a clever idea.

Which brings me back to the classroom. I'm having enormous fun (outside of the sinus infection and being called to other teacher's rooms to watch their class while they use the restroom on rainy day schedules because I'm the "extra teacher" which also apparently means I'm a jack-of-all-trades). It seems like the students are too. We played a decimal number writing game, we do a lot of group work, and there's lots of jokes flying around during instruction.

I've heard people say that I'm lucky to afford to have fun with what I do for a living. Some people go so far as to tell me that's ALL I do - have fun. I'm not belittling the fact that I am one of the lucky ones, but my optimistic side refuses to think people who work in more routine jobs can't have fun too.

Case in point: teaching can sometimes be a real drag. If you let it. I let it go there last semester. It was definitely not fun, and look where it landed me. Repeating phase III student teaching.

Case in point #2: the janitor at my school is always having fun, or so it seems like. He has a smile on his face, a bouncy step, and he likes to whistle. Plus, he is the most efficient janitor I have ever met. I've met quite a few both in schools and at the dairy lab when I was a lab rat. Janitorial work is thankless, tough, gross, and low-paying. Thus, many janitors have low morale and cut corners. A lot. The dude HAS to have fun to make him go about so cheerful and be so efficient.

I personally add a little fun to my day every day. Again, I have it easy because I have a rabbit, friends to call and chat, hobbies to enjoy, family to rile up in arguments at dinner. Not everyone has that, I know. And making things fun out of nothing fun is tough too. I've been there as well. So I guess I understand. But I don't particularly sympathize with people who complain about life being boring when all they do is just wait around for the fun to come to them.

In this profession, I can't afford to NOT have fun. I'll burn out before Thanksgiving.