Hello, Goodbye

Hello, time-stealing day of the year, coming to change my circadian rhythm and throw the whole country off-kilter and on edge for the next week.  I know there are many who love you, but I don't see why.

Goodbye, normal day- and night-time; you must be sacrificed for the sun-worshipers who need their hour in the evening instead of the morning.  These are the people who have never worked all day on a farm or in a pasture, building fence or painting a house in the brutal heat of a summer day.  They just don't know the joy of that cool early hour in the morning.

Hello, slapping the snooze button one or two extra-fierce times in the morning, muttering words that I hope Santa and Jesus never hear from my innocent tongue.

Goodbye, snuggling gratefully under the covers when I realize I've awakened a half-hour early and can dream blissfully for just a few minutes more. 

Hello, sleepy students wandering into first hour exactly as though they've stumbled out of a Walking Dead episode---with just about the same amount of brain function.

Goodbye, bright morning sunlight pouring in the glass doors of the east wing, just past my classroom, greeting students who are awake enough to have fed and dressed themselves in (mostly) reasonable clothing.

Hello, research, you old so-and-so, bane of my existence, my spring torture and torment, destroyer of worlds and god of chaos.  Oh, how I loathe you.  Though I have mostly defeated your extended reign this year by tackling you early, I get alllll those papers this week, just in time for the long evenings I need to grade you.  You are the suck-tastic ruin of all my glory in the classroom.

Goodbye, easy winter grading with, let's just say it straight out, NO FLIPPING RESEARCH.  EVER.  

Helllllo, testing.  Spring = testing.  Testing = agony.  Therefore, spring = agony.  I cannot make the case any simpler than this.

Goodbye to you, winter, the gift of time to cover all those bazillions of objectives to be introduced, practiced, mastered, tested, reiterated, and left for dead when the next series comes along.  No, of course we don't leave them.  We take our roadkill with us, knowing the State will come looking for evidence of it.  It will be properly tagged.

Eventually, of course, I will adjust.  We all will adjust and (though you sure couldn't tell it by the weather here today) we'll welcome spring with mostly open arms.

Hello, being able to drive home from the gym in the amber evening sun, burnishing the whole Oklahoma landscape to a bright gold.

Goodbye to getting home in the dark, ready for bed at 8 p.m.

Hello Bradford pear trees, and daffodils, and jonquils and lilacs and honeysuckle.  Hello, beautiful soft green grass.  Hello hay fever, allergies, and Allegra---oh, Allegra, we are so happy to see you again.

Goodbye to frozen drippy noses, peeling skin, and cracked fingertips, and Kleenexes in every pocket of every jacket.  (I have become my mother and my grandmother, with tissues even tucked in my sleeves at times.)

Hello, sunshine.  Welcome, warm breeze.  Goodbye sleet, sneet, snizzle, snow, thundersleet, ice, black ice, and everything broken or wrecked by such as these.

Hello to short sleeves and capri pants.  Goodbye, sweaters, gloves, scarves, coats, hats---surely this must be how a snake feels to shed its skin!

Hello, Spring.  We thought you might never return. 

Spring Forward?  Spring on!