I Don't Recommend 14-Hours Behind a Laptop on a Saturday When You Wear Trifocals. By 11 p.m. Everything Before Me Was Out of Focus

I'm trying not to fall in the last February angst that I see landing upon literacy colleagues across the country like it's a fog. I realize the work ebbs and flows, and at times there's just no way to catch up, even when you sacrifice every second of your weekend to stay on top of the game. K-12 and University teaching never ends. There's no clocking in or clocking out - you can only do what is necessary to stay afloat. In K-12 schools, administrators work just as hard as teachers. In higher education, you occasionally catch glimpse of an administrator and they always assure faculty they work much harder than everyone else on campus. It's an illogical trust that goes with the territory. I will likely go to my grave curious what those positions entail, especially when they don't teach, don't seem to fight for faculty, and rarely interact with students. They are paid well, though.

Saturday was successful, I suppose. I did walk Karal and toward the end of the evening reread half of Trevor Noah's Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. It really is a phenomenal book - of course, I'm partial to comedy, but the realities of race in S. Africa is as disturbing at U.S. history...I know it is safe to say that racism was globalized by European colonization - made almost universally problematic for Black individuals in any nation. When you read about S. Africa you simply think, "How could this ever be allowed to happen?" But then I see our administration at Fairfield University and simply think, "Oh. Not too hard to imagine. There's variations of it everywhere."

Good thing I wasn't driving last night. Everything was blurry when I finally decided to give it a rest. The good news is my laptop sure does hold it's charge. Even after an entire day typing away, I still had a quarter of the battery left.

I'm likely to repeat the same strategy today, as I need Tues/Wednesday classes finished by the end of the day, so I can use Wed night and Thursday to prepare for the MLK Youth Leadership Academy. This is my 9th year as host for the middle school conference in collaboration with the MLK Convocation at Fairfield University, a task that Dr. Yohuru Williams passed onto my in 2013. I was invited, watched him in action, then took the lead from there. I miss him every day as he, Rony Delva, Coach Sydney Johnson, and the incredible Todd Pelazza were always loyalists, always at my side and supportive of the work. Rony are the only ones left...can't say we've ever seen Deans or their superiors at the event. There's always a story, though. The optics to upkeep the facade. 

So, I'm starting today to rubbing my eyes and ready to focus once again. It's all I can do. There's so much more to be done. And I will continue to fight for what I know is right and what I believe in.