Sunday Night Blue's

When I was in high school I had a teacher, Mrs. Stein, who was one of the two teachers who has made a huge impact on my decision to become a teacher. She was firm and structured, yet humorous and sensitive. In a lot less words, she…got stuff done. Mrs. Stein taught a business class. The first day of class she gave us a list of all of her pet peeves: saying “axe” instead of “ask”, “pitcher” instead of “picture”, etc. I envied the way she just came out and said what she felt, in a funny enough way as to not insult any of the students.

 

I took the class as an elective, since I couldn’t bear to be enrolled in chorus any longer. Generally, all of my other peers in the class knew that they wanted a career in some form of business. Then…there was me, the aspiring teacher. Despite this, the class was still great, informative and certainly not a waste of time.

 

After Mrs. Stein lectured us about steering clear of all of her pet peeves, she told us a personal story of how she became a teacher. This, of course intrigued me. She told us that before she became a high school teacher, she worked for a textbook publishing company, where she was miserable every single day. She coined the phrase, “the Sunday night blues”, in my book. Every Sunday night she would put her children to sleep, go up to her room and begin to cry because she so dreaded going to sleep and waking up to another depressing Monday morning of boring work. After an entire year of the same Sunday night crying episodes, she decided that something needed to change. Mrs. Stein realized that the only change she could make was a career change, and so she did.

 

Now, she goes to sleep on Sunday night’s excited about Monday, looking forward to seeing her students, and anxious to teach new material.

 

That’s what it’s all about, right? My father always told my sister and I to do what we love doing, because you will be married to your job. He happened to love cars, ever since he was little kid. He opened up his own business in Paris, Tennessee and struggled every single day to make ends meet. Today, ten years later, he still struggles. I bet you thought I was going to say that he is a multi-million dollar auto body owner with thriving businesses around the world, huh? Nope. He works six days a week simply because he can’t stand to be away from his “baby”. I may not be the heir to a multi-million dollar business (damn), but I will always remember my dad’s words. Like Mrs. Stein, he found a career that he loves…Sunday Night Blues far from sight.