In a moment of boredom, homesickness, frustration and exhaustion, I googled "I want to quit teaching". The phrase isn't important. I probably google at least 20 big and small ideas a day for no better reason that to see what comes up. What is really interesting is how many other people had googled the same phrase.

Who are these people? High School teachers? College instructors? Are they in North America? Are they potential or new teachers or those ready to retire? Are they the disillusioned, the tired, the burnt out? And really, why had I typed it?

It leads me to question what is wrong with the job because clearly, something is. I don't buy the line that teachers are spoiled and if they only worked a week in corporate, they would realize how easy they had it. That's BS. I've worked corporate, and even when we were working 24 hour shifts, there was always a day off in sight and usually a cash bonus as well.

I remember business lunches, happy hours and real, REAL, 3-day weekends, bbqs with friends, naps, reading novels, getaways, and having energy left on Sunday afternoon for some last minute merry-making before the work week. I remember having energy to have passions -- and hobbies. I remember leaving my work at my desk and walking away, every day, to go home, to a real life.

The myth with teaching is that your job is the real life, that you are supposed to be energetic and passionate about lesson planning, pedagogy, lines of student conferences and stacks of in-class essays. There is no life outside of "work" because you love what you do and do what you love.

And yet we burn out, marriages fail, we lose our lives completely until there is nothing left but the wold of the teaching institution. If we are lucky, we make it to retirement, a dry, shriveled husk, sapped of our inspirations. We then work part time (for lack of anything else to do -- after all teaching is all we know) until we die in our beds surrounded by ungraded blue books. 

And of course by "we", I mean English instructors.

Don't get me wrong. I have days where a kind word from a previous student makes my day. Or when I see the light bulb go off in a student's eyes and I know they "get it" - they see the connection and their own potential. Those are good days. But I'm not sure they are enough to sustain a lifetime of living only two months out of the year. I'm not satisfied with those little dried tubors of existence. 

For some instructors it is blasphemous to say that teaching is just a job. 

But it is my job. It is not my life. 

Why did we take pictures in front of cars?
The old Chevy sedan,
1957 pick-up truck.
Dates to the drive-in and malt shop,
Blue Jeans, and full skirts 
Ready to be twirled at the next dance.
Lives were simple, black and white.
A future of Kodachrome and Techno-vision,
Yet to be lived.
We sped along this road,
In these cars,
To unforeseen destinations.

Elli. Elli Kay. Inspired by Elli Mae. Not short for Elizabeth, Eleanor  or Eliza. Just Elli.

I'm always the Enthusiastic Elephant in that first-letter game, and no one at the doctor's office gets my name right: they pronounce it "Eli". Don't even ask how they spell it.

My sister called me Smelly. It was after a night of eating sardines when I was 6.  I'd been introduced to those canned fishes by a kindergarten teacher and much to my sister's disgust, I thought those perfectly preserved treats were quite good (especially since most others found them incredibly gross). On this particular night, as my sister babysat me, she refused to give me a bath. I sat in the bathtub, the water growing cold, alone. Apparently I smelled of a hundred of those little fishes.

This smelly idea stuck even as the name changed: I soon became known as Smell-Rod (a deviation from my other nick name of Elrod). It's still a favorite of mine, probably due to the ease in which it rolls off the tongue and lips. It's a strong, slithery name which feels powerful and silly all at the same time.

"Rotten" also became my name, a deviation from Smell-rod, but one lingers to this day. Perhaps I like it most because it's the opposite of "sweet" - everything my mom had wanted me to be. When I had told her  I wanted to grow up to become a belly dancer, she assumed I meant ballet dancer. But I adamantly refused to wear pink. In fact, even then, black was my dress-up color of choice. It was also my favorite color crayon as well. There was something soft and velvety and smooth about that crayon which glided across the coloring book pages in a way the other crayons didn't. I took to coloring in all my color-book characters in supposed night scenes, just so I could use that black crayon. My mother must have been just a bit concerned about those blackened pages of Snow White and Cinderella.

In many cultures "sun ray" or "shining light" is the meaning given to the name Elli, but just as many also define the name in almost opposing terms: "other" or "foreigner". In a way, this dichotomy fits. I'm part Enthusiastic, and part Rotten. A shining light in the land of the other. Or vice versa. 

Or, just Elli.