A Routine

Well, it is time to get into a routine and stay there. I realize this sounds a little strange considering the semester, my semester, started the very end of August. Still, I have yet to get there. First of all, while two of my classes started the end of August, the third one did not start until two weeks later, mid-September, since it is made up of high school students.

Even once all the classes got underway, I was still not in a routine. Many people do not know but there are a number of Jewish Holidays, major Holidays, Holidays that one is commanded to take off from work (and in this day and age go to the synagogue and pray). The first Holiday is Rosh Hashanah, and most people know that one. This Holiday is celebrated for two days. In effect, I needed to take Wednesday and Thursday off from work. Ten days later is Yom Kippur. That one fell on a Saturday, so know time was needed. Four days later, or two weeks after Rosh Hashanah, is the Holiday of Sukkot. It is a seven day festival but only the first two days are Holy days, again a Thursday and a Friday this year. The week after that is Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah. Again, Thursday, Friday this year. Within a four week span, there are four Holidays and this year, I needed to take 6 days off of work. That means that for each of my classes, I missed three session.

One session I sent in a video tape, one session they were given an at-home assignment, and one holiday I just gave them the day off. Hard to get into a routine. To complicate matters, now that the Holidays are over, school is off tomorrow because of Columbus day, so I still cannot get into a routine. Hopefully, after that, I should not need to take any time off and we pretty much meet straight through until Thanksgiving break.

Of course, nothing is ever definite. My wife is down with pneumonia. I have a respiratory infection and my son had croup last week, but is hopefully over it now. So with sickness, anything can happen. With the way things played out at the beginning of the semester, at times it felt like the gods were against me. Hopefully, there is not more problem with sickness and the gods will now work for me.