The good news is that we just started a new semester yesterday, which means that as of right now, I have no grading. It's a rather magical feeling, to be honest. I have been spending a little more time than usual lesson planning, but that's because I'm adding some new things to my sophomore curriculum this year. We moved our teaching of Julius Caesar to this semester, despite normally doing it in the first semester, because we completely and totally ran out of time, and getting sophomores through Caesar in a week is ... well, not only not nice, but just not possible. But four weeks? This feels luxurious. I am actually going to make it through it. Slowly, ish. And so the new stuff? Poetic meter. It's crazy. Totally crazy. But it's hard. And that's why I'm doing it. Also, my students legitimately suck at memorizing things. It's so weird. I remember memorization being so drilled into us by high school that it was the easiest thing a teacher asked us to do. But I think teachers have gotten so far away from teaching that requires strict memorization that our students really just don't know how. So all my kids are really going to need to know are the different metrical feet and metrical patterns. That's about it.
I'm also very excited about their final project for Shakespeare: an oral interpretation! They have six options, but all of them require actually performing. I'm excited to see what they come up with -- they've got many options of scenes. Also, one of the options is a puppet show. I hope they pick this option. I'm kinda stoked about it. I also made a big fat fool of myself today by demonstrating an oral interpretation of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy. I did it ... as a valley girl. It was quite priceless. The kids weren't really quite sure what to make of it, but I think they were amused and slightly offended. Mostly because I was generally imitating them and how they talk.
So that's that. What else happened today? I got upset with my fourth period class because they don't really know how to not talk when I'm talking. It's incredibly irritating. So they lost the privilege of my teaching today, at least for part of the period because, really, why should I sit there and do battle with them when they don't want my wisdom? Too much work, not enough payoff.
Then after school was my department chair meeting. This one was fairly uneventful and drama free, though, seriously, teachers can invent drama out of nowhere, mostly because they come in late or aren't listening. It's sad sometimes.
I left school about 5:30. ::sigh:: And now I'm sitting on my recliner, contemplating the gym. I really have little excuse not to go -- I've eaten. I have no lesson planning to do. It's getting late enough that it might not be that crowded. ... ugh. But I already missed Monday's workout because of work-related burnout, so I must power on.
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