Always Tired

Or at least it seems that way. I realized this morning on my way to work at 7 in the morning, that for the first time in our marriage Eric is consistently getting more sleep during the night than I am (not including weekends...praise the Lord for weekends). What's ironic about this is that before we got married, I was consistently frustrated by the little amount of time Eric spent sleeping (somewhere between 5 and 7 hours). It worried me that after we got married, I would go to bed and he would stay up multiple hours after. We even got into a couple of fights about this because for me, one of the great perks of getting married was to have someone to lay in bed next to me when I went to sleep. So, the thought of him staying up just irritated me. And now, after all those discussions, I am the one who gets fewer hours of sleep. Don't get me wrong, we go to bed at the same time, but I unfortunately get up somewhere between an hour and 2 hours before he does. Really, with the exception of one morning since I started teaching, I've been gone before he even gets up.

Why on earth I had to choose one of the professions that require an extremely early wake-up call...

So, I now get somewhere between 6 and 7 hours on average a night. Which when I type it out doesn't seem all that bad. But, I honestly believe, and have heard many people agree with me (teachers and non-teachers alike) that teaching is one of the most exhausting jobs. I pretty much entertain all day--or at least that's what the kids expect. So, I'm constantly trying to bring kids back from the netherworld of their minds all day, or keep them from talking/being distracted, or explain to them why my class is important... I come home bushed every single day.

I cannot wait to have my own class, to be teaching history/social studies, to be working with all kids not just the struggling kids (which incidentally has given me an even greater respect for special ed. teachers--and I already had a large amount of respect for them to begin with).

Anyway, I'll quit complaining now.

Eric has recently gotten me addicted to Halo. Halo is an xbox game--first person shooter--that revolves around destroying an alien civilization (among many other things). I had tried to play it before, but had always been playing in competition with Eric. Needless to say, I always got my hind parts handed to me, and after a while I stopped playing. Last week, though, he told me that we could actually play together, through the actual story line of the game, so that at least if I was getting killed it wasn't by him. And I loved it. So between Thursday and Sunday, we defeated the entire first game. And now, we're on to Halo 2. It shouldn't take us too much longer to beat it. Unfortunately, while Halo 3 comes out next Tuesday, it is only on Xbox 360--which we don't have yet. Hopefully we can go to Ben's and play it there. We'll see though.

And...the Cardinals are officially out of post season contention. Ok, not officially, but they might as well be. With only 14 games left in the season, the Cards are 7 games out of first place--and nowhere near contention for the wild card (one of the pitfalls of playing in the worst division in baseball - the NL Central). It would take a collapse of historic proportions by the likes of both the Cubs and the Brewers simultaneously, and a winning streak unprecendented in this season by the Cardinals for them to make it to the playoffs. Somehow, I just don't think that's going to happen (although as I write this the Cards are up 3-1 in their game, while the Cubs are down 4-2 in theirs). So, I must decide who to root for in post-season. It's going to take a lot of prayer and consideration...

Tomorrow is another Wednesday night dinner at Radius, so be praying that the same people who were there last week decide to come back and that new people come.

Ok, I'm going to stop rambling now...