Even the non-believers at the school where I work are praying tonight. Well, at least those of us on the native speaker staff are.

If tomorrow is sunny and beautiful, the students will head to a nearby lake where they will run a 10 kilometer (6.3ish mile) “marathon”. While they are doing this, we, the native speakers, will be doing such useful, scholarly things as “going to the bank”, “playing World of Tanks” and “recovering from hangover”.

This is because there is nothing for us to do on marathon day. I’ll be working on my final exam/playing World of Tanks whilst my students run in the wind and the cold.

If, however, it is rainy and/or snowy, the marathon will be cancelled and classes will be reinstated and we’ll have to rush to school to teach.

The latter has happened quite a few times. My first year at the school where I work, it was a beautiful sunny day everywhere but the actual marathon site. As I went about wasting time and conspicuously consuming, I got a call telling me marathon had been cancelled and I had to go to work. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the school, my classes would have been finished.

I ended up getting the day off, but I felt bad about it all day.

A few years ago we got two major snow storms a week apart and that left the marathon site messy and dangerous  and we ended up having class.

Although we can guess, based on the weather predictions, if the marathon will be a go or not, we still have to be up early to monitor the school website to learn if there’s a change of schedule. If there is, we start working the phones and rush to school.

I’ll be up early waiting for the official notice. If nothing changes, I might go back to bed.