I was working vehemently on not wasting time–just waiting for the next week to begin. I needed to feel a measure of empowerment. Friday evenings brought relief in the form of X hours until re-engagement, and I knew that feeling very well. Saturdays equaled a celebration of stasis, and then when the sun woke me on Sunday, I knew it was only six or seven hours until the Dread started.

I used to think this kind of thing was especially powerful for those involved in the education industry, but I realized it was a self-pitying approach. It wasn’t that a percentage of us felt awful for the upcoming work week. It was all of us. Before the classroom, my “Friday” was whatever day my stretch of sequential work days came to an end. There was a time more than a decade ago that my “weekend” was Monday and Tuesday. Even thinking about it now makes me sick and furious with myself. “How about it?” a sneering voice asks. “Do you want to go back to Monday and Tuesday off? I didn’t think so. Now do what you have to do and quit whining.”

I guess a central problem for a lot of us is something like this: at what point do we stale? Do we have to keep working on alternate plans? I’d really rather not live my life as a series of countdowns, but it seems that today is going to be just that, at least for the next couple of hours.