Ten days of school until break. Less than ten until I NEED a break. I get Monday off, but I already know it will be full of grading. I’m so far behind. I did manage a few reassessments last night. I finally could get my head around them. My co-teacher showed me how to see the old comments. That was a revelation. I’m not sure why it wasn’t a revelation before, but hey…I don’t always click on all the little icons at the top to see what they do. I probably should do more of that. In my spare time. CLICK ON MORE THINGS. I’ll get there. I swear I will.
Yesterday was good (but short) on the planning side. The in-class with the counselor side? Oh fuck me. Serious chaos. Not a level of chaos I’ll do with 36 kids in the room. Not this crew. Anyway. It’s done (you have to do it again, two more times. Don’t think about that.). Today will be painful…for the kids and for me. Because they have to turn stuff in and that is like tearing off toenails for them. The kids with a pile of crap in their backpack that is all disorganized and crumpled…do I help them? Do I toss them into the fire? I did record a video with all the pages in order. You’d think they’d use that. I already know where my frustration levels will be by the end of the day. I’m putting my chill hop YouTube station on and maybe grading some stuff. I’m going to keep a big, slightly scary smile on my face all day. I’m going to nod knowingly and shake my head at appropriate times. I’m going to take deep breaths. I might wave at kids. I might grab the rolling chair and just hang out. I’m not going to take their crazy on myself.
Oh yeah. OK. I can do this. It’s a nice thought anyway. A goal. Something to aim for.
After school yesterday, I kamikazed across town to the Rose Gallery, on the campus of Francis Parker School, which is chi chi and bougie and oh-so-not like my school. Three friends of mine had art in this cool show, Words Imagined, where they picked words and then made art to go with it. I love these…
The artists are Peggy Wiedemann, Don Weeke, Polly Jacobs Giacchina, and Johanna Hansen.
Their work is all different and fascinating.
So many weird little things to see. It’s cool that it’s at a school and the kids will be interacting with the work.
Then I kamikazed (much slower due to rush-hour traffic) back home, ate some food, wrote some instructions for tomorrow’s class I’m guiding (not really teaching am I?), and went to my first ever full-length Pilates class. The pro is that I’m stronger than I think I am. The con is the core is not. It’s all good. I will get there.
Back home, dinner after 9 PM. Hmmm. Planning sucked there. Oh well. I did eat. And then I graded, and then I traced.
Kitten watches me with one partial eye…
Oh wait, somewhere in all that, in between the bits and pieces, I cleared a space for them to check my attic…
Here’s the resultant mess that I will have to deal with…
Sigh. Whatever.
Finally tracing. Fifty one minutes…
Yes, I went to bed late. I have one more person to trace and the center, and that’s it…plus the space cat. So that’s about 200 pieces. I could do it tonight, but suspect I will be panicking about grades and the class I’m not teaching tomorrow. Why did I sign up for this? New experiences. OK. Let’s go be NOT irritated. I can do this.
Kathy Nida 