Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Finals, Day One

Oy vey. Finals. Which inevitably means grades are due. And my AP kids this year are grade grubby little suckahs, so they've been driving me INSANE in the membrane about their final grades, so I'm trying desperately trying to get them as updated as possible, and I still have one more fairly major thing to grade, and I've been honestly and truly trying to grade them every night, but holy crap on a cracker I have so many OTHER things going on that's making it really hard to finish. I'm training for a half marathon, so I've been trying to diligently start the baby steps into training for that, so I've tried to etch out time each night to work out, and I'm really going to try not to have tonight be the night that I don't work out. I'm also trying to put Christmas away, feed myself, make sure my finals are together and I have all the materials I need, and sleep enough. And though I know there are some teachers who sometimes pull all nighters or grade at night, but it's just not fair for me to grade them when I'm tired.

Also, I wear a lot of hats. Since this blog didn't exactly get updated as consistently as it could or should have, I don't think I really delved deeply into the many, many different roles that I play during my day/week/month/year as a teacher. Aside from being an English teacher, I'm an AP English teacher, so that's a different hat. I'm also the English department chair, so that's another hat. I'm the Speech and Debate coach; another hat. I'm the teacher advisor of the Science Olympiad team; another hat. I am teaching an afterschool class for teachers about technology; another hat. And I run an event for the San Diego Regional Science Olympiad; another hat. So, how many is that? Seven? ::smacks forehead:: Holy moly.

Tonight, I was wearing my Event Captain for Science Olympiad hat by sitting through a really long meeting at the Natural History Museum of which my part consisted of about fifteen minutes. And I went last. So I sat FOREVER through this meeting. And I'm definitely wishing I'd have taken my time, stopped for a bite to eat, and come in towards the end. My event is last alphabetically, although I'm thinking that's not really why I went last, I don't think. Now, normally I can multitask with the best of them, and given that none of this information really made any whit of difference whatsoever, but still, I couldn't focus. Part of it was that I was hungry. But part of it was that I was so annoyed by some of the questions. SO annoyed. But I get it: some of the coaches are new, some of the events are new, and sometimes the event captains don't always come to these meetings. But I have so much work I wanted to do that now I'm sad. It's 8:30. I've just wolfed dinner down. And I really need to eek out a workout because of my training plan. I guess perhaps more grading isn't really going to get done tonight. ::grumble::

Hopefully, tomorrow, on my long prep, I can do some lesson planning, some grading, some cleaning, and some prepping of final materials. And get my hand on some more scantrons. Joy. And then during my sophomore final, grade more. And lesson plan more.

Now, I'm going to make my lunch while some brownies cook (simple pleasures are the only thing getting me through) and then changing for the gym. I feel like if I feel better -- stronger, healthier, thinner -- I'll be more focused and a better teacher.

Onward.

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