Magic 8 Ball says… DOUBTFUL.

The last two days have been so busy. I’ve kept it together, but I’m afraid I’m going to burn out and shut down sooner or later.

Background: I’m teaching two classes at the middle school, then running out and driving across to the high school, taking about 20-30 minutes to get myself together, get mail, check email, and then teach three more classes at the high school.

Today, I went back to the middle school to plan next week and stayed to work in my room until 5. I got home around 5:30ish, sat down for a minute while the frozen pizza baked, and ate. It was nice to sit down to eat and hear about the kids’ school days for a bit. Then, I got my laptop out and planned my lessons for tomorrow/created slide shows with all the notes and information. At about 8, I took a warm shower to try to calm my tension headache, then got ready for bed. Once I was there, I read through two class sets of simple brainstorming (so I could see their ideas) and finally was finished for the day by 10 pm. Now I’m writing.

Here’s the thing: I have no idea how I’m going to balance it once I start getting actual writing to grade. The work I did tonight didn’t take terribly long, but reading and responding to essays? I’ve been putting in 12 hour days to keep up already, and this is (supposedly) the easier time – the beginning of the year.

Maybe it’s not the easiest time. I suppose I could have made it easier on myself, but instead, I am redoing the Legends class using the work I did over the summer and what I learned from last year, I’m starting Composition off differently because I wanted to start with business writing that works on very specific skills in a shorter format that is less personal, and I’ve never taught 7th grade, so I’m learning that. Looking at it now, I guess I could have done some things to make it easier.

I’m not good at resting on my laurels. If I have what I think is a better way to teach something, then I want to do it. When I get done planning, I’m excited, and that shows up in my teaching too, which translates to engagement. That is why I struggle with canned curriculum where it’s just handed to us and we’re told “do this” without having any understanding of the “why” behind it – I need to think about why I’m doing things as I’m designing things. Without purpose, there’s no engagement (for me, anyway).

Things will be better next trimester. This trimester ends at the end of November. I’m a little scared. Send cash, baked goods, home-cooked meals, and gift certificates for massage.

I’m only half kidding about that last part.

On the plus side, the weather today was amazing. I am enjoying the opportunity to get outside for a brief time in the middle of the morning. We’ll see if I enjoy it still in February.