Snow Daze Part Deux

January brings the snow / makes our feet and fingers glow ~Sara Coleridge

I have no exact numbers, but I think that I have seen almost as much snow in Memphis as I have at home in Allentown this winter. We only got a few inches here, but from the way people were talking, you'd think it was Snowmaggedon. Please, Memphians, I know what a moderate Snowmaggedon looks like (eastern PA, December 2009/February 2010), and this is not it. However, the lack of snowplows makes the snowfall a tad more dangerous than four inches would in the good old Keystone State.

Friends, you should've seen the jubilation in our house last night when we verified two text messages from fellow TFA-ers that we were getting a snow day today. After "Memphis City Schools" came up on the snow closings page I was constantly refreshing, Rita and I flipped out. We turned on the TV (yes, we finally got a cable splitter and set one of our two TVs up) to double-check and even took pictures of the screen when MCS appeared in the bottom banner. Within a minute, my whole facebook news feed was filled with coworker and/or TFA-er statuses, all some variation of "SNOW DAY!!asdfjk;l" Oh, how juvenile we all become at the thought of no school. Worse than our students, I bet, because we all remember high school snow days, right? Let me tell you now the high does not even compare as a stressed-out first-year teacher. If I weren't still sick, I surely would've had a celebratory beer. 

I've been doing work on and off today, and I am feeling better than I was yesterday and a thousand times better than I was this time last week. I'm starting to sound like myself again (as opposed to Hoarsey McHoarserson); I no longer wake up coughing; and my aches have lessened. Our neighbors, a 12-year-old boy and his dad, were making snow sculptures, so the boy, Drew, helped Rita and me clear off our cars, packing the snow into a trash can to carve Elvis Costello on their front steps. They've been playing Elvis Costello music the whole time, which is a nice soundtrack to the work I am kind of doing. Drew told me he thought we'd get off tomorrow, too, and I told him not to get my hopes up. (Still, you know I'm watching the snow closings page again. A bunch of Tuesday closings already...) How lovely is it that the snow that typically keeps people in allowed me to make some new friends today? It was simply joyful to watch Drew be so excited over the snowfall. In the north, maybe we just get jaded by the Snowmaggedons and the shoveling and the ugliness of our cars after each drive on the salted, slushy streets. It's such a novelty here, I guess, that it merits that kind of excitement. 

Just before finding out about our snow day last night, I submitted my application to be an Operations Director at institute this summer. I love how, after going through institute as a corps member last year, I told myself there was no way I would go through it again, and yet, here I am, applying for round three. I must be a glutton for intense work (and, to be fair, intense fun, because once you get past the endless to-do lists and the weird hours, it really is quite enjoyable because of the awesome people). There was a page on the application about prior involvement with TFA, and it amused me greatly that I could select "Yes" on all three sections: corps member, institute staff, and TFA staff. I really do live and breathe this. I'm going to apply for the Director of Data Management position as well, which I think I'd prefer over the OD position, because I also live and breathe Excel. I've also put in an application for a summer job at an education consulting firm, submitted my resume to the TFA book that goes out to consulting firms, and started an application to Penn's ed school (for a joint degree in ed policy). With any luck, at least one of these things will pan out and I'll be able to go back to China for a bit, but I guess we'll just have to see.

Back to work (and wishing, probably fruitlessly, for another day off)!