Monday, October 18, 2010

I Need to Slow Down

I need to slow down.  In multiple ways.  One way is the usual - I spend too much time and energy thinking about the weekend and wishing I could just get through the week.  I like to think that this feeling will go away after this first year teaching at Century, but I know myself too well.  I've created a habit that is currently and will continue to be very difficult to break.

The other way is with school.  Apparently it's considered just fine to not following the pacing guide at all and therefore not finish covering the required chapters by the time the final rolls around.  I think that is ridiculous, but at the same time, it's ridiculous how many gaps the kids have in their knowledge.  I don't want to stop Algebra 2 right now and go back, because I just started the quadratics chapter, but I am going to try and slow it down and also go back and review all the other stuff.  Geometry I haven't figured out yet.

I wish someone had told me at the beginning a) just how many gaps the kids were going to have because while I knew they would have forgotten stuff, what I've witnessed is just absurd and b) that apparently we can get behind the pacing guide (as long as it isn't public knowledge or something).  Now I feel like hindsight is 20-20 and I have to deal with it.  And of course, that information came out today and now I'm scared that Mister or Madame Backstabber, whoever it is, is going to talk crap on me again.

But, whatever.  They don't make the decisions.  And the person who does make the decisions gave me a good first evaluation.  So there.

Speaking of evaluations and observations and such, I have an observation tomorrow from the people who will decide if I'm allowed to do BTSA Early Completion.  My fingers are crossed that it goes well.  I don't know which class they're coming to, which is aggravating.  I'm prepared either way of course, but it's still annoying.

Oh yeah, I had a fabulous birthday.  :)

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Six weeks in and I'm dead

We have reached the end of the first six week grading period.  The stress and tiredness of those six weeks has finally caught up to me.  This weekend I was very, very tired.  I managed to not do anything productive on Friday night or all day Saturday, but then I paid for it today by doing work all day starting right when I got home from church.

That was at about 11 am.

The worst part of all this isn't even work.  It's my online class.  It's the last one, so naturally it has to be the grossest.  It all got worse when the professor told me my literature review needed to be double the length that it was.  That threw a wrench into my entire plan to get more ahead on the class's assignments today in addition to taking care of a bunch of other stuff that needed to be taken care of.

I do not want to use this blog as a means of venting and being negative, but please, indulge me this one time.

I FEEL LIKE MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE WITH ALL THE THINGS I HAVE TO REMEMBER AND DO, AND SOMETIMES I WONDER HOW I AM GOING TO GET THROUGH THE NEXT 8 MONTHS OF MY LIFE.

My birthday is on Thursday.  I'll be 25.  This is a big birthday, and yet I can't even think about it.  It sucks.  Horribly. This happened last year too.  I honestly keep forgetting that my birthday is in a mere 4 days.  I sincerely worry that it will be Wednesday night and I'll still forget that my birthday is the very next day.

There are just too many things to remember to do.  I don't know how I've done it the past 2 months, and I'm not sure how I'm going to keep doing it.  What keeps me going is knowing that next year will not be this bad, that I'm halfway done with the hardest part of the school year (September-October: no days off until Veteran's Day on Nov 11), that I might actually get to do BTSA Early Completion and therefore not have BTSA next year and have my clear credential at the end of this year, and that next year, while I enjoy the luxury of not dying, I can hopefully plan a wedding!?!?!

I need to go watch Friends.  My brain needs to forget about all things important and productive for at least one little hour tonight.

By the way, the show about hoarders on TLC is fascinating.  And "Sister Wives."  Very bizarre...

Monday, October 4, 2010

Such a lovely Saturday!

Ok, so yesterday was Sunday, not Saturday, and today is basically over, but Saturday was pretty darn nice.  It was a girls day with just Mindy and I.  After ballet we went to her house, then went and got pumpkin spice lattes and shared a pumpkin cream cheese muffin.  Then it was massage time, and naturally I got sucked into joining Massage Envy.  However, I think it will be very good for me to actually get a massage on a regular basis.  After that, dinner at Macaroni Grill followed by making chocolate bread pudding at her house and watching When Harry Met Sally.  I have never been to Macaroni Grill and have never seen that movie, so it was a day of firsts for me!

It was such a lovely, relaxing time.  We really need to do stuff like that more often.

Sunday was filled with church, lunch for Grandma's birthday, working on online homework, and then dinner with Mat.  Lunch was depressing because Grandma has gotten really sick.  It's sad.  I basically did a double take when I saw her.

Today I triumphed over a certain class period! That's all I'm going to say about that, for good reasons.

I've been trying to work on BTSA a little tonight, and I've basically come to the conclusion that it is not all that hard, just annoying time-consuming.  I think that once my online class is finished this month, I will just devote a couple of Sundays to BTSA and be done with it.  Since it isn't due until December 10th, I can easily finish it if I work a little here and there for the next three weeks and then more starting at the end of this month.  I'd rather just do it all now, but it just isn't going to happen with this online class still going.  Especially not with, you know, working.  Now I just need to get going on the Early Completion Option Application so I can do all the BTSA crap, sorry, I mean, stuff....in one year instead of two.

I want to watch Friends.