You say goodbye...

I don't even know what to do with myself, lately.  I've had a few buckle-down, get-it-done sessions where I actually finished sets of things.  Other than those, though, I've been twittering about in large loops, finishing little.  I was feeling guilty because I'd had a set of essay tests for a week.  Then I realized I'd had them for TWO weeks.  What a d-bag!

AAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDD, I'm spent.

Yesterday, my little friend whose mother seems to care more about his success than he does copped all kinds of attitude with me.  Apparently, he "always asks for help" and I "never help him."  Because really, friends, I'm all about setting kids up for failure.  That's why I've been contacting her moms at least once a week for the past three.  Oh, I know what it is: I make the kids ask me actual questions.  "I don't get it" requires a specific question before I will help; making them think through it before I help makes me an unreasonable biz-nitch.  And of course, there's the ever popular, "we never learned this in the other teacher's class last quarter."  Except, sweetie, that I knoow you learned this in MY class last year, and we've been working with these skills all this quarter.  ROOOAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR.

Slept in this morning, which always feels delicious.

I got up, graded (turnitin.com is a beautiful thing, friends) the 17 Macbeth Explications I told the kids would be graded yesterday , then rewarded myself with a nap.

I've also been watching the reverse-order Lethal Weapon marathon all day.  Gotta love Mel from back in the day when he kept his anti-Semitism on the inside.  Those guys sure spend a lot of time underwater.

To make sure I didn't get too giddy with the post-grading flush, I found out that a friend of mine who is the only World Language teacher at her semi-rural school in MN just got cut down to half-time. She teaches Spanish and French.  In addition to worrying about my friend and how she is going to make ends meet, I can't help but worry about those kids.  She teaches at a 7-12 school.  Now those kids have only a half-time teacher?

Approaching the land of grading hell

Eight school days left of the term and approximately 110 papers to grade in that time, not including re-writes.  Here I am again, not only behind the eight-ball in terms of grading with two class sets turned in so far and three, COUNT 'EM, THREE graded.

Boohoo.

Choosing a rewarding job that cannot be completed during the duty day kinda stinks sometimes.