The amount of sympathy I'm receiving from other teachers and various students as I crawl along from classroom to classroom is quite overwhelming and touching. However, it all leaves me feeling more than a little fraudulent. I'm aware I look bad (someone told me that my face was lined with pain, and the missus seems to take personal offence over the fact that I'm slanting) but it's all under control and I could quite easily put a stop to it by getting myself admitted to East Shore. The reason I don't want to do so now is purely selfish: by delaying things until next Friday I can clear all sorts of odd bits and pieces of work and make my life a whole lot easier when normal service is resumed, assuming that that will be the case.
The other thing that's hard to explain to people is that pain which switches itself off the moment one gets seated can hardly be considered real pain at all. It's just a tiresome inconvenience.
In the meantime I owe so many thanks to those around me trying to help that I'm trying to make sure I find some way of channeling that to pass it on to others. The uses of pain are many and more positive than we sometimes imagine.
2 comments:
Sir, I really think you should leave work for a while. I know that it feels bad to leave all that work behind for someone else, but there are many capable teachers who can substitute you temporarily, aren't there?
Frankly there are loads of people who can cover more than adequately for me. The fact is that I'm being a bit selfish at the moment, clearing the decks for what I think will be an inevitable absence later in March, simply to make my life easier. So really, don't worry about me - but I'm gratified by your advice.
And for those who are subjected to the grim spectacle of me grimacing as I make my way around the school, looking even more ugly than usual, be assured it's nothing like as bad as it looks.
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