Hey. So I need a nap. It’s morning, it’s 7 AM even, but I already need a nap. I fell asleep worrying about school after grading an assignment that made me rethink my career choices. It shouldn’t have. It’s a relatively easy assignment, and my other three science classes did pretty well on it, but this one class? Was I on crack when I taught them this stuff? Or was I asleep? Because they didn’t apparently get the same lesson everyone else did.
Except they did. I taught all of them the same day and this was the last of the four, so it should have been the most refined teaching of the day for science. So. Not me. Except, I’m a teacher, so we always think it’s us. I seriously half-cried when I got to the third kid (three in a row with zero understanding of the assignment, incredibly off topic). I eventually got to some kids who reaffirmed my faith in humanity and my own teaching (yikes!). So then in the shower this morning, I practiced the conversation in my head that I will have with them this morning. I already know that what I have to teach them today is difficult and requires multiple brain breaks, because I taught it three times yesterday and it was fucking hard. Not because the topic is hard…it’s not THAT hard. It’s just been warm, my A/C refuses to come on, the kids come to me hot from PE, and their brains are only just barely working on school at the moment anyway. It was a painful slog. It will be cooler this morning, so hopefully that will help with this challenged bunch.
I often have Nova overseeing (literally) my grading…
Meanwhile, I haven’t gotten much art stuff done. I managed a little more than an hour of cutting things out on Monday night…
Kitten is absolutely no help. She wants to sit in the fabric boxes but knows she’s not supposed to. So then she headbutts me until I pet her. Sometimes she’ll settle right there and sometimes she leaves.
Last night, I got home from work and went to the gym (good!), came back and started grading that hellacious class, questioned my career choices, almost cried, ate my dinner, finished grading that class, and finally started cutting. At 10 PM. There’s some people who think I’m always too busy to see them because I’m making art…I’m only making art after 9 PM, y’all. It’s the day job that takes up such a huge chunk of time. Even my phone thought I should’ve started earlier…
You’re right, phone. Usually I would have started around 9:30 PM. So it was a shitty night for cutting things out. Hopefully tonight will be better. I have book club on Zoom. I’d prefer it in person, because I need some time and space with humans in person who actually listen to me and don’t stare off into space and then say, “I don’t understand!” at the top of their lungs because they haven’t been listening. I will not be getting any of that this week except maybe at lunch. Maybe. Not even dinner tonight or tomorrow night. Zooms. It’s OK. I’m having a rough time of it, but it will get better…or it will be Spring Break. Either way, I’ll survive.
I cut things out for about 21 minutes last night before bedtime.
I see progress, but it’s slow. I cut out those long skinny cactus last night. That’s it. That’s all I did. I hope I do more tonight, or this quilt will never get done. I also need to enter another show (to make up for the one that rejected me yesterday…it’s OK…rejections are normal) and do my photos and script for the lightning talk for SAQA. I need the mind/headspace to do that one. I think I might have that on Friday? At the earliest? Let’s not think about the fact that it’s due Saturday. It’ll be fine.
Today? This morning, I have a parent meeting, then I teach that class that will torture me, then art, talking about idioms today, then the second part of science, which should be more fun and/or easier than yesterday. I hope. Then a lot of grading during prep period. Then exercise, book club, cutting things out. SLEEP. See, no nap. Hmmm. Must be doing things wrong.
Kathy Nida 