Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Is it REALLY That Bad?

The simple answer to that questions is, "Yes!"

Two days into the new semester, and I already want to run in the opposite direction screaming!

As many of you know, the new semester began on March 2nd. As I blogged the other night, I tried to have "high" hopes for the new semester. I arrived to work around 8:50 on Monday morning, and a few minutes past 9-- my dreams of a "good" day were shattered in front of my face. I should have seen it coming, but I guess sometimes train wrecks happen so fast we just don't know what hit us.

For starters- we have these things called a "learning curriculum" --- they are suppose to aid us when it comes to planning how much of the lesson we can teach in a particular week. This piece of paper is rather important, and guess who didn't have one on Monday morning? That would be me and my fourteen other colleagues. Guess what else I didn't have?! Come on, I know you want to guess.... I didn't have any books for my five morning classes. Without a curriculum and without books, you may wonder what exactly I could teach. That is what I asked myself the entire morning. I will say, that I did end up getting books about ten minutes before class started, however, not everyone had all the right books and tomorrow is Wednesday and my kids still have yet to see a Phonics book. Anyways, Monday we did a whole lot of coloring and I taught my kids the "Wiggles" version of Head and Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.

A coworker said it best himself in his own blog when he mentioned how much he took his "old" classes for granted. God, how I miss my old kindergarten class. The class that knew how to line up for the bathroom, the class who could do arts and crafts and computers without talking and asking 1,000,000 ridiculous questions. Ah, the class who knew the routine, and always knew what book to have on their desk, etc.. Those were the days my friends... and those days are long gone. I, of course, know that it takes time for kids to get accustomed to a routine, but when you work a day like we do, it takes very little to blow your patience level for the day. I will say that the best part of the day is seeing my old kids in the hallway. When I walked into S1-2 yesterday, Annie (my old kindy kid) ran up and hugged me for seriously what seemed like 10 minutes. I hope she knows that I love her as much as I think she loved hugging my legs.

Even though yesterday was a shell shocker, and I went home sore from head to toe, I made it out for chicken and beer to say good-bye to Scott. He is a teacher that came in October and decided that it was his time to go. Part of me doesn't blame him, but I'm sure he'll be missed around the office. A whole group of us went out, and although I hardly go out, I actually enjoyed myself. Maybe that is what I need-- a little more chicken and beer in my life. For a quick second it was as if all my problems had gone a way to a far away place. That was until I woke up this morning and it started all over again.

I actually think I had a dream very similar to the one that Billy Murray has in Groundhog Day (circa 1993). I promise you, my routine almost never changes. The alarm goes off at 7:40. I wake up, I pee, I re-set the alarm for 7:55. The alarm rings again, and I contemplate re-setting it for 8:05. I usually get out of bed at 8:02 and come right to the computer where I check my email. I'm usually half asleep when I read them, and I usually have to re-read them when I get to work. I usually pee again, pick out my clothes, shave and shower. 8:30 rolls around and I'm out the door and down stairs searching for a cab to work on the nearly "cab-less" block that I call "home".

With that said, tomorrow is Wednesday. I hope for my own sanity that it's just a little bit better than today was.

1 comment:

To Be Announced said...

I concur more chicken and beer!