Hey, teachers! Making New Year’s resolutions for your personal lives? How about making some for your professional lives with these 35 teacher resolutions to ring in the new year?

As a teacher this year, I resolve:

1. To not roll my eyes during pointless inservices and staff meetings.

2. To meet with colleagues for an after-school drink at least twice per month.

3. To not give wacky parents the finger from my end of the phone conversation.

4. To say no to unpaid extra duty positions.

5. To pee when I have to.

6. To not daydream about murdering the copy machine Office-Space style.

7. To not teach to the test at least once per week (Common Core be damned).

8. To work on making sure my face doesn’t say what my internal dialogue does.

9. To squeeze more than a handful of trail mix and some cold coffee into my 20 minute lunch break.

10. To make Mondays the days I pretend to not be too tired to care about my appearance.

11. To not stay up all night providing feedback on something the students won’t read anyway.

12. To not contemplate 100 ways I could be better spending my time during contract-mandated meetings about meetings.

13. To not hire a hacker to plant a self-destructing virus in the data storage program.

14. To have a personal life.

15. To laugh when the technology inevitably fails — AGAIN.

16. To resist punching the next person who says it must be nice to only work from 8-3 for 9 months per year in the genitals.

17. To avoid thinking about my crippling student loan debt.

18. To avoid thinking about how my retirement won’t be there anyway when I’m finally able to retire at age 86.

19. To not run away to Finland.

20. To resist the urge to repeatedly bang my head against the second story window while proctoring state-mandated standardized tests.

21. To survive March.

22. To not have an existential meltdown in the office supply aisle of Walmart when I discover they’re all out of the lined paper my students so desperately need and I have to purchase myself.

23. To not shin kick the next administrator who asks, in response to my concerns about a student’s behavior, if I’ve tried calling his parents or moving his seat.

24. To not stash a fifth of vodka under my chair at parent/teacher conferences no matter how badly I think I need it.

25. To not laugh in the face of the parent who wants me to call her every time her child glances sideways.

26. To pretend to be happy about attending my 32nd, 3-hour IEP or 504 meeting of the week.

27. To not lose my shit on the next student who asks if we’re watching the movie.

28. To not begin chuckling maniacally at the next student who asks why I don’t have that 10 page research paper, 100 question math test, or 3 page lab report they turned in yesterday graded yet.

29. To not start tearing my hair out and rocking in the corner when the students begin packing up their stuff and heading toward the door 13 minutes before the end of class.

30. To not hide under the bleachers at the next pep assembly.

31. To not mutter expletives under my breath.

32. To read something that’s not school related.

33. To watch a movie without thinking about all the ways it could fit into the curriculum.

34. To not kidnap and torture the next politician who passes legislation tying my job security and salary to test scores.

35. To remember why I got into this profession in the first place and not lose sight of what really matters.