I've fallen

I'm pretty sure I've fallen off the face of the earth, or into a very deep hole.  I can see the light at the top, and know there is a hope for some rest and recovery in the future, but have no idea when life will return to normal.

You see, when one of our new teachers we hired for this school year decided to quit the day before school started and 5 of us took on an extra class, that meant 4 of us gave up our prep periods.  That doesn't sound like such a big deal and I've always thought that people who complained about not having a prep were wimps.  I mean really, teachers only work 6 1/2 hours a day.  How lazy are they?

I think what is really getting me is that I don't have a break during that 6 1/2 hours.  Once I'm at school, I'm on.  And by on, I mean I'm on stage.  Think about an actress performing on a stage.  Like a play that lasts 6 1/2 hours.  I'm entertaining teenagers for 6 1/2 hours straight.  I have to remind myself that I have to go to the bathroom when lunch time comes around.  I have to remind myself that I need to sit down for 10 minutes and shove some food in my mouth.  That usually consists of a yogurt and maybe a piece of fruit or maybe a granola bar if I have 12 minutes.  Sometimes I forget to eat.  Since I'm the peer tutoring advisor and county science fair coordinator and National Honor Society advisor I'm trying to judgle maybe one too many things.  In my free time I'm doing Binky Patrol and monitoring the local Freecycle and and online Yard Sale group and Cafe group for my county.  They don't take too much time during the day, but they do require daily internet checking.

I have a former student who graduated in June and who hasn't started school yet who has been coming in every day, yes, every day, to help me out.  She stays all day long to help me set up labs, grade papers, pass things back, clean my classroom, organize things and talk to me when I feel like I'm going insane.  I have no idea what would happen if she hadn't been there.  She has seriously saved my sanity this year.

She starts school in a couple of weeks and she has changed her schedule around so she doesn't have to go to school on Tuesday and Thursday.  She really likes hangining out at school with me and helping me.  The other teachers are giving her a hard time for spending all of her free time helping me, but I'm so loving having her help.  I get all my papers graded the day they are turned in and she does such a great job.  She helped me every day last year after school and she wasn't even my TA.  She's just a really nice kid.

On another note, my son got some glasses today.  He's been having lots of headaches lately and went to the eye doctor and found out his eye sight could use some help.  He wore glasses back in 6th grade for a while and then found it was too much trouble to keep track of them.  He didn't complain too much about having trouble seeing the board and usually sat up front in class because of his hearing loss.  He loves his new glasses.  They even change to sunglasses when he goes outside.  Pretty fancy!  And yes, he often dresses in a suit to go to school.  He loves to be different and says suits are just comfortable.