Something there is that doesn't love a sick person...

Especially a teacher. It sucks being sick, but when you have a normal job you can be sick and call in to stay home. When you are a teacher, it is actually more work to stay home than it is to go in and teach. When you realize you are sick, you have some phonecalls to make. First, you have to call your supervisor (in our case, the dean of our upper school) and tell that person why you can't come in. Then, you must call the substitute list or the service that provides the subs for the school. You must tell them who you are, what you teach, how many classes you teach, where your classroom is, where to park, where to find all the materials to take care of your classes, how many students are in each class, and what your classroom policies are. And then you must give them the details about what they should do for 50 minutes for each one of your classes. Heck, it's easier for me to drag my sorry self out of bed, dose myself with medication, and come in. If I'm so desperately sick that I can't teach, I can give them a nice, long, time-killing assignment to do while I sit and meditate on how miserable my life has become.

There is a huge difference in how my juniors and seniors handle my illnesses compared to my freshmen. When I dragged myself in to school with a fever, the juniors and seniors said, "You look like you aren't feeling very good. Is there anything we can do for you? You should go home." The freshmen looked at me and said, "You look terrible. I don't understand last night's homework. What was I supposed to do again? Can I turn it in after class because I don't have it done?" The freshmen are still a bit centered on themselves (much like my dog) and therefore my illness does not pose them any immediate concerns.

If I left the freshmen with a sub, they would learn to appreciate me more. My juniors and seniors have been left with subs before, and they understand that we have no way of predicting who will come to sub their class, what those person's qualifications will be, and how they will handle the class. I had one sub who ignored my carefully designed lesson plans and read children's books to the girls (they were 9th graders at the time, and the sub read them If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and other such books). Another asked a student to braid her (the sub's) hair for her. A third informed the students that they should meet her son, who was about their age and had (no lie; direct quote) "luscious lips". OK, if my parents had ever told anyone that about me, I would have DIED. The girls were horrified. When I came back, they greeted me at the door with hugs and the exhortation that I would never leave them with a sub again.

Thankfully, this morning my temperature was normal, and so I came to work. All the older girls solicitously asked me if I was feeling better. Only one freshman even bothered. I guess I was still alive, and that's all they needed to know...