spring break

now there's a reason for gratitude.
mostly content, most of the time. just working. working. and wasting time. lost in dreams of possible futures--colorado, vermont, ski towns. visions of the young bear growing up on a mountain. the ridiculous belief that the only way i'll ever shed this 30-lb tire hanging from my midsection is to ski full time. why do i twist in the wind of high school?
a wee tad taste of self-pity? grass is always greener. all that.
is it really all so much about me? about my wants? how come i can't come around to living a life of service? how can i serve these students and help them to learn when i find myself not really caring? am i burned out or is it just a grind?

two days until spring break, the second best thing about boarding school. this is why i make the big bucks, kids, for two weeks in March when i don't really have to do shit. i'll take care of some stuff here the first week, then off to VT for a week, for a few days skiing.

once i lived in thailand, in Chiang Mai, and i taught at this awful school. my job was a blurred chore. the only thing i liked about it was that a few of the other teachers hated it as much as i did, so we'd hang out and bitch. on every vacation, i fled to the south, to the beaches, to phuket. and then i moved there.

i'm wondering if i'm in a pattern here. is this job in the boarding school on the water the same as the Chiang Mai job? I don't hate the school though. it's not misery, at least not most of the time. it's just fine. rather, it's fine, but it often feels like work. wouldn't it be nice to work at a job that didn't feel at all like work? like they say in those self-help vids. just do what your heart says and god will pave a rainbow for you and you'll be richer and more wildly successful than you could ever have imagined. so, are the mountains my phuket, and if so, why am i not packing my life into cardboard boxes?

in two days, the second best thing about boarding school life begins. the kids leave. i'm on vacation for two weeks. i'll leave for the mountains, to ski.

and for this, i should be grateful.
it's just that i grow tired of watching my life click by like a slideshow on a computer, one still shot at a time, at four second intervals.