seriously, can the week be over already?

So, this morning I woke up to a couple of rotten emails.  I run the County Science Fair and mostly feel like a fish swimming upstream trying to keep this thing running.  Everyone loves the fact that our high school hosts the fair and that I've kept the fair going when everyone thought it was doomed to die.  I brought it back from the brink of death and poured my own money into it the past 10 years, but I swear every year will be my last.  Not only do I not get support from teachers and administrators, I practically have to fight them (figuratively and literally) to keep the fair going.  When the paper comes out to interview, they are so proud of the job I do, but when it comes time to help me out, they are nowhere to be found.

I had asked for $13 worth of supplies for a student project yesterday and you would have thought I asked for the Hope Diamond.  Of course there is no money in the budget for such a thing.  No mention of the thousands of dollars in grants I've written over the years.  I dared to ask for a $13 slime mold kit so a kid could learn something.  Crucify me.

I should have known then to just take the day off.  But, no, I opened another email to read another bit of government bureaucracy and runaround.  The standards have to be changed for a few of our classes and people didn't fill out paperwork in time and now once again the ball was dropped and is bouncing back to the teachers to fix.  It was a simple click of a button three weeks ago, when I first noticed the glitch, but because nobody can see the problem, make the decision and fix the trouble, there has to be the 'proper chain of command followed' and I skipped several steps, it has taken three weeks to get to the spot I was in 3 weeks ago and now there is a massive amount of paperwork to fill out for about 120 students.  The ball dropper can't say, oh, my bad, but has to keep placing blame on others.  If only I could just teach and let all this just go.  Oh, why do I care so much?

Then, I get to school and the principal is in our building.  That never happens.  He asks if I've read my email.  You mean while I was driving to work?  Supposedly a man called saying a student was bringing a gun to school to shoot up the school.  We were supposed to keep an eye on the students since we knew them best and alert the office if we suspected anyone or if any students were acting 'shady'.  I said that sounded like all of the students.  I asked if we were supposed to frisk the students before letting them in class and got a strange look.  Hey, I just want to teach, not be a police officer, profiler, prison warden.

Why has this world changed so much that I have to be afraid to go to work and do my job.  Hopefully my students like me enough that I'm not their first target.

During my first class of the day, one of my students must have sensed my need for something positive and came up to the board and wrote, Mrs. Lewis is best.  I asked what I was best at?  Was I THE best?  Or, were they just trying to suck up so they wouldn't have homework?  Hey, whatever it was, I will take it.  Sometimes the kids just know.

But, I am ready for the weekend.