Sitting as a contact sport

As an English major, I spent a lot of time in college sitting on my butt. I'd have an average of 1,000 pages to read a week and could bet on spending at least 10 hours a week writing. I never thought a moment about how bleeping uncomfortable it is to sit.

I cannot do it.

Sitting is killing me.

To be specific, sitting is kicking my butt.

As a teacher, I never sit. In fact, I probably do at least a hundred squats a day. I get almost seated and then someone says, "Hey, Ms Harrell..."

Now, that I'm a grad student, I sit way too much. I spent a good 15 hours last weekend researching and writing, and anywhere from 2-3 hours each night this week.

I just finished my paper (yay), but although I am done writing, my body is not done speaking to me. My knees, back, even my gosh-darn toes are complaining. And then there's my butt. You think something so ample would be comfortable to sit on. Nope.

Here's the interesting thing. How does one prepare for sitting? Can you condition for it? Does it include, dare I say, just sitting on your butt and doing nothing?

I have the weirdest problems.

Sitting is exhausting

The last time I was as still as I have been for the past two days, I was on bed rest and pregnant. I'm not used to being quiet and sitting all day.

For the past two days, my district has been conducting hearings regarding those of us laid off. Hearings will continue tomorrow. The past two days have been a haze of circular arguments and huge, run-on sentences.

My emotions have ranged from irritated to hopeful to despondent and all the way back to irritated. I started out as 24 of 34, in terms of English teachers being hired back, and now I am 9 of 16. That means that nine teachers ahead of me will get their position's back if someone retires, resigns, or is fired.

My situation is improved, so I am grateful. However, I have dark thoughts towards those teachers with less experience than me who found out yesterday that they have their English teaching job back. I'm trying to be a gracious person, and I'm almost always successful. I keep telling myself that there is a reason I'm in this situation. That I do have power and that is not happening to me. I'm not always successful.

So tomorrow I will sit during my last day of hearing, and I will wait. I will read my book and resist the urge to roll my eyes. I will maybe not be 100% successful, but heck, you can't blame a girl for getting restless.