Snow

Am I crazy or is winter especially unbearable this year?  I feel like the one snow storm a week phenomenon did not come to the city last year.   Every time it come down, it is just enough to be really annoying and moderately dangerous (sliding everywhere on the road, having to dig the car out every 6-8 days, the streets never getting cleaned, or fully plowed, etc, etc).  What's worse, it's always just under the required amount for Mr. Michael Bloomberg to cancel school.  This man just tells the city not to drive, but then keeps school open, when hundreds of teachers live in Long Island, New Jersey and Westchester.  I live here in Brooklyn, so I could leave my car plowed in and take mass transit, as suggested by our dear leader, but do I want to spend 1.5 hours fearing certain death on a bus driven by someone else, or 30 minutes in my own car with my life in my own hands?  The latter please.  Sometimes I miss the old Garrison days when our Principal/Superintendent lived far away and would shut us down for mild flurries.

Don't misunderstand; I love my job.  I want to be at school every day.  I want to teach.  I want to see my kids.  What I don't want is to almost die on the way to work, only to find ten students sitting in my homeroom, and maybe 120 in the school at large.  I mean, really, what am I supposed to do with ten children?!  I can't do anything new, can't do what I had planned, so I have to review and make new plans, make new worksheets, make new activities, or else assign dreadful busy work worthy of a sub.  Not this time.  I have contingencies this time.  Plan A; school is open and the majority of my kiddos braves the snow, in which case we work on area of trapezoids and triangles, or B; my half-class and I play math games in rotating centers and finish our Donors Choose thank you letters.  A wasted day, un-wasted.  Plan C, the little known engine that probably won't, is in case of a miracle: sit in PJs, snuggle Lola, plan, catch up on back issues of the New Yorker.  Oh, to dream.