Is it worth it?

Irony. Today our HR guy denied my 2 personal days for the marathon. Unless I can get my principal to strong arm him (a possibility) or the union to fight it, it's going to cost me an extra $800 to run Nashville. The irony? 15 minutes after I got the deny slip in my mailbox, I had two of my students in my classroom waiting to interview me for their TV class about...my marathon running. Their timing couldn't have been better (or worse). It helps my case, but fuels my anger. Personal days are personal. He shouldn't even have known why I put in for them, other than he stopped me in the hall last week and, trusting idiot that I am, I told him.

In my classes on Mondays we have story time. There's nothing 14 year olds like more than talking about themselves, and they all get a chance to say what they did over the weekend on Monday mornings. It's done tremendous things for my class atmosphere, and my rapport with the kids. Sometimes I raise my own hand, and wait for a kid to ask ME what I did. Now that they know I'm training for another marathon, I don't even have to raise my hand...they ask. "How far did you run this time? Are you sore? I could never do that..." etc. And while they don't know my entire reasons for running, they know some, and like any good teacher, I get those life lessons in there. So it's doubly annoying that the fucker denied it.

At any rate, is it worth $800 to me to run it? Absolutely. And hey, since I still have my 3 personal days to take, now I get to choose 3 more days off (plus the countless sick days I've accumulated over 7 years), just because I can't let it go. I'll just make sure to take Wednesdays.

But, maybe something will come through. Once my pissed-off-edness wears off, I'll talk to the principal.