Five weeks left to go and

I feel like I'm still recovering from the speech season. With the showcase, State, the banquet and all the related drama, it's like it never ended, even though the last competition was over a month ago. I'm dealing with the ramifications of a thankless job that truly saps me. This season this year was not a good one on a lot of levels. The kids didn't do as well as they should have, and the kids' attitudes were poor. The seniors, in particular, showed lack of commitment as well as lack of respect for the team and the coaches.

I have spent a fair amount of time with my co-head trying to figure out the difference this year. What did we do differently? Were we too focused on expectations? Did we not include enough fun? Did we let the drama director push us around too much in the interest of keeping the peace? We can't put our finger on it, and that's at least as depressing as the crumminess itself.