My “Second Job”

I have a “second job.”
Yeah, I do student entrance tests, and at the beginning of the year I helped the Clarinet students.  But neither of those are my “second job.”
No, my second job haunts me much more than the squeak of a poorly played Clairnet.  Every time I think I am done working, it pops out from beneath the haphazard stacks of paper on my desk, emitting a thin wail of “daaatttaaaaa…. collect more…. datttaaaaa…..”

It’s yearbook.
Because of yearbook, I am a part-time photographer, a data wrangler, an organizational freak.
Because of yearbook, I know more about futsal than I ever thought possible.  (It’s a position game, you know.)
Because of yearbook, I have watched more basketball than I imagined I would.

It’s true that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I signed up for yearbook. Madi warned me, but I didn’t listen.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret being on yearbook team.  In fact, I kind of like having an excuse to go see my students play sports.
It’s just that it takes up so. much. time.

“It’s not like yearbook in the states,” I remember Madi saying.  “The school hires a designer, and there is no student involvement at all.”
Easy peasy.   I thought.  Layout, I had learned from my years as a member of my college’s newspaper, Chimes, is often what can take the longest.  So, with someone designing everything, there is only data to collect.

That is easier said than done.
Convincing a fellow teacher to look at a photo on the shared drive and write down three names is like pulling teeth.
Organizing a time for team photos to be taken is more difficult than planning a college class schedule.
Communicating with our excellent but haphazard designer is like using a tin can and a piece of yarn to make a phone call.

Yearbook is my second job.
I try to create strong boundaries between work and the rest of my “life,” which means that I make an effort to leave work in my classroom, and not take it down the eight floors to my apartment.  That sometimes means I am in my class until after 6:00 pm, but that is what I do in order to not feel as if I have to work all the time, even thought I do.   In addition, I try not to return to my classroom after I leave, so that I can spend an hour or two before I go to bed simply being.  I make some dinner, read a bit of a book, write a paragraph for a future blog.

Some people start their master’s degrees.
Some people hire private trainers to get into shape.
Some people watch Netflix.
But yearbook is my second job.

So here Madi and I are, staying late(r) than usual, all in the name of yearbook.
Our second job.