Another foggy morning. I like fog, especially when hiking. I like the house encased in fog. It’s somehow quieter and more peaceful (except for the fridge, which is humming away like a happy…machine). I can see the tree branches moving slightly. I can hear the tiny dog barking like a maniac. Hmm. That wasn’t part of my peaceful foggy morning.
I’ve been going to bed earlier, a little bit, most nights, but it’s not really helping. Tired is a thing. It’s possible I am just always tired. It’s hard to get enough good sleep these days. There’s noise from people and cars and dogs and my brain. That last one is all on me. I listen to my brain. Yesterday I talked to my students about listening skills. About job skills. About how when your boss talks, you have to actually remember what they said. In one ear, out the other? Possibly. And the host of emails I got last night…”I don’t get it.” Um. What don’t you get? What are you asking me? It took me until this morning to realize the girl who said she’d “written the climate but didn’t know how to do the rest,” and I’m like, “climate?”, WTF, we barely talk about climate in here at all, and we haven’t yet, WTF is she asking me, and then my brain this morning said “claim. She means claim.” Head on desk. FUUUCCKK. OK. Claim. You wrote a claim. Still. WTF are you supposed to do next? I gave you a paragraph with all the sentence starters. Write the next sentence starter and fill in the blanks. Listening skills. This is the 3rd time we’ve done this. This is the first time she’s tried? The first time she’s listened? Maybe.
One more painful thing for me to grade. If they would read my comments, it would help. Them and me.
OK, well. It is what it is. The kids who have been trying are improving. We move on. Last night, I photographed what I think is a student forgery of a parent signature, and I emailed it to the parent. Waiting on that one. I wish I cared less, but we just met with that parent about this kid. Another meeting this morning, different kid. Should be interesting.
Speaking of interesting kids, I should hire this one to do doodle notes for us…
So school goes on. I try to balance. Same as always. I was at a meeting until 5:30 last night. I started at 8 AM yesterday. Today I’m going in a little early. Today is the last easy day on this assignment…then we go into labs and it’s work. We were smart and broke it up over the weekend (it was a coincidence…it just happened that way). I don’t have any long meetings after school today; that’s nice. I have pilates. That’s also nice. And art is happening in little bits and pieces.
So I got home late last night and did more work…I sent the union email I send every month, and then I tried to start putting groups together for tomorrow’s labs. Kids who won’t pick a group. Kids who pick groups who don’t want them. Kids who pick groups that won’t work. Kids who pick groups with too many people in them. Three is the max. It includes you. There will be no groups of 8 kids y’all. This afternoon, I will finish all the group picking. I’m sensitive to the loners and lonelies. I will do my best to place them in a safe group. Sometimes we give them choices; sometimes we don’t. They need practice with both.
After dinner and all that work stuff, I finally did art stuff. That pile of pieces in the box doesn’t look very big.
Every animal stopped by for a bit…
Simba doesn’t like the big pieces of Wonder Under. The sound makes him nervous. He eventually left. I did finish cutting everything out though. In 5 1/2 hours. I could have sorted them last night…it would have taken another hour. I’m glad I didn’t though. When I’m tired, I don’t deal with kids as well as when I have more sleep in me. So I’ll sort tonight.
And then come in here and clean up, so I can start ironing to fabric tomorrow. I should pick a background fabric too. That sounds nice. Don’t think about the pile of assignments that needs grading. They will be there no matter what. You can bring some home. Maybe finish a chunk today and tomorrow. I got some done yesterday. It was kind of magical. Today I could get more done. Knock on wood.
I make plans every day. That’s how the art gets made. It’s good.
Kathy Nida 