FOUR. TEEN.

Dudes.

Oh, dudes.

I am so tired. I cannot even tell you.

Yesterday, I worked for fourteen hours. FOUR. TEEN. HOU. RS. (OW ERS? That would emphasize the pain....) The other eighth grade Language Arts teacher and I spent four hours after school teasing apart our district preassessments and the new rubric on which they are scored. (Which I a little bit hate. No way to score for word choice. No way to score for sentence fragments or run ons. Dialogue is required. What?) And in those FOUR FREAKING HOURS we got through....one class. One class of kids. Leaving five to go.

SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH.

Alternately, alkfjdklfjdalfdi;ahi ai;ioe ehioadfsjk dafsj fjka;fksdi;eio 0 nsalkvdnjdskehklao.

That is how I feel.

Today, I was teaching or in meetings the entire day. First plan? PLC for Language Arts. Lunch? Lunch duty. Second plan? Talking to the reading teacher about our curriculums. After school? Meeting with district GT person about GT coordinating. After that? Meeting with my student teacher and the site professor about how I don't think my student teacher should randomly leave class in the middle of the period to TAKE CELL PHONE CALLS and GO BUY RED BULL. (Hyperbole? Oh no, no it is not.) ST seemed deeply annoyed with that perspective. Why did I agree to do this again?

I almost made one student cry, and totally unintentionally. He was late for my class today for the THIRD DAY IN A ROW and so I sent him out in the hall to discuss. He was upset. Deeply upset. Eyes-red-can't-look-at-me-jaw-vein-pulsing upset. And not with me, with himself for being late. He's a pretty damn cocky kid and I've heard people say before that making him cry in class would be good for him [funny to say - less funny to actually do], but I was horrified that we almost got there simply by me saying, "Are you late AGAIN? Seriously? Okay, let's talk in the hallway." We came up with a solution that he's going to try tomorrow, and I let this tardy slide, but I did threaten to destroy him if he kept showing up late. That he laughed at.

One of my most promising new students totally forgot to turn in an application for an enrichment program that would have been awesome for him. Like 50 kids applied and there are only 10 slots open, but still, I think he would have been great for it. And he just....spaced. He did agree to go into honors Language Arts though, so yay for that.

Attendance is already sucking hard. On any given day, I have anywhere from 10 to 15 students gone. And swine flu season isn't even in full swing. I'm thinking of just distributing face masks and telling them to power through.

Huh. This post is seeming really whiny. Um.....positives. One of my favorites from two years ago was in no honors classes at the beginning of the year. I told him I thought he should think about going into some; he refused point blank. A week later, he came and asked me if he could move to honors, and he's rocking it.

Annnnnnd....oh, I had a really good turnout for the first meeting of the school newspaper, so rock.

And although I did work for fourteen hours yesterday, it was really useful and I have a much clearer understanding of the rubric/requirements (and I'm being paid for that time which is sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet).

And I get to go to bed soon.

And this is my 100th post. :)

(Photo credit to My Buffo)