Intrinsic Rewards

I'm a teacher. Obviously, I'm not doing it for the money, I do it for the love of children. For Christmas, one of my favorite students got me a snowflake! It was the cutest little craft thing; had a letter from my name hand-painted on each of the little arms + an S in the middle. I should've taken a picture of it before we put everything away... but the little things are what drives me to teach. The notes with inventive spelling, the hugs before they go home...


anyway, there are some "rewards" I can do without.


Colds.



My internship semester, I had a nasty cold.
My first year teaching I had two nasty colds...
I was surprised I made this far in the school year unscathed but alas...


This week, two girls came up to me and said, "Ms. Kutieboots, my throat hurts!" and "Duele mi garganta" (my non english speaker). I told them to drink water and everything should feel a little better. Then, a boy in my class brought a hacking cough to school and didn't know he's supposed to cover his mouth! I wore off on him, talking bout, "Hey!! Are you trying to get me sick?! I don't want to be sick! And I ESPECIALLY don't want whatever you have! You need to cover your mouth when you cough! We don't share germs in here!"

Upset! I get visibly irritated and disgusted at the sight of people not covering their mouths! That.is my pet peeve. That's the only thing I'm germaphobic about. Not big on hand sanitizer, don't wash my hands before every meal, have kids spit gum, pen caps, paper, erasers in my hands... whatever.


So I wake up Friday morning with a sore throat. Ahh, a little achy, I can make it thru the day. Get some hot tea in me and I'm out the door. The day and my throat get worse. 1130, I realize I'm not hungry and I can't even finish the orange juice I bought that monring. It took me forever to corral the kids off the playgroud 'cause I couldn't call them! I waved frantically till I got someone's atterntion and my Teacher Helper did the rest. By 1230, I'm laid out on the reading rug and the kids are doing whatever they want. Luckily, I have my kids so scared to get a color change, they self regulate their behavior. They are playing with the big playdoh (as opposed to the little playdoh they used for fun writing), they're on cartoon network on the computer (supposed to be PBS kids or something educational) the girls are writing on the board with my dry-erase markers... all the while I'm just buried in my sweatshirt on the floor.

"Ms. Kutieboots, can we play wi-"
"yes. I don't care"
"What abo-" "
Yes, knock yourself out"
"Juan Carlos is on-"
"Its Fun Friday, have fun"

Daah. I'm freezing even though I have on a camisole, fitted tee, college tee and a sweatshirt. My voice is totally gone and my temperaure is going up. Dismissal at 2pm took forever to come. It did, I signed out at 225 and was out. Got home, realized I don't like hot tea but was forced to drink it by mom. When she left the room, I dumped it down the bathroom sink. Since I "liked" it so much, she made more. I took two advils and a benadryl and tried to go to sleep. My body was asleep but my mind was wide awake. The 3 hour nap felt like I was just closing my eyes trying to fall asleep. When I did actually wake up, it was weird.
Fever gone, appetite back, I struggled to eat my weight in rice and corned beef stew. Did it twice. It hurt to swallow but the food was great. Dozed on and off for a couple of hours, drank some water, sent texts since I couldn't talk, watched TV and went to bed. Fever returned so I took some more advil but no ben. that ish is wack. I don't know how I fell asleep cause my throat was killing me and I was getting up to cough up ebola/mad cow... oh well.

Now this morning, I downed two mugs of hot chocolate and my throat feels better. Since my docs aren't in, I might stop by a clinic to get some antibiotics cause this bird flu is not getting it.