busy, busy

So, it has been awhile since I’ve written anything. I will try to post some carnival pictures soon. I didn’t right away because my camera was stolen at carnivals. That’s another story. Basically since carnival I’ve been busy with lots of school stuff. This is probably really boring to read about, but I’m going to write it anyways. Consider it my extended excuse for not writing on my blog.

Students took their trimester exams, and then grades and report cards were due. Luckily, my exams were scheduled early in the week. I felt bad for the teachers whose exams were on Friday, and whose grades were still due on Monday. I actually finished my grades on Friday and then spent the entire weekend sitting at my desk planning the entire next trimester of Language Arts. And didn’t even finish. Why would I do that? Well, because my Understanding By Design unit plans for both subjects were due in a week. As well as curriculum maps for both subjects. (It kinda feels like I have assignments due for a class. Regardless of the fact that they will actually be useful to me, it is still stressful to have big assignments due.)

The next week we had parent teacher conferences. After conferences, I didn’t have a whole lot of motivation to plan although all the planning was actually due MONDAY!!! However, I did some work on Sunday including writing daily lesson plans for the next two weeks in Social Studies.

By Tuesday morning I’d had to revise my plans twice because the schedule had changed twice since I planned Sunday night. After meeting with my department head to change my benchmarks so that they were more like his, and adding some weekly planning, it was finally done. Except that it was then time for formal teacher observations. Thursday I was told that my observation was on Monday, and my pre-observation meeting was the next morning. After a long school day and tutoring, I checked my e-mail only to discover that my observation was not for Language Arts like I requested, but for Social Studies. And I couldn’t find the new lesson plan form that we were supposed to use. Although the meeting was fine, it was not a good feeling to have the night before an important meeting.

I really did have a fantastic weekend. Saturday some coworkers and I went to the beach. There were no waves, but we swam and practiced floating on Elizabeth’s new surfboard. Some of our coworkers and the KC peeps came to a fiesta de vino y queso to celebrate Elizabeth’s birthday. Lots of dancing and lots of fun. By Sunday night I knew I needed to finish up my observation lesson plan. Even though it didn’t actually take that long to do, I was so stressed out just thinking about going back to school. Such a contrast from the relaxing, fun weekend I’d just had.

Luckily, I didn’t plan for the week Sunday night because when I took my students to the library this morning, the music teacher asked to use my classroom for a rehearsal. The rehearsal ended up lasting the entire morning, and four of my class periods were held in the library. At lunch time I found out that my observation had been rescheduled for the next day- during Language Arts. Of the 5 people (myself included) who carpool together, 4 of us have not only had very short notice of when our observations are, but we have all had our observations rescheduled. The fifth person still doesn’t know when her observation is.

I’m reasonably certain I will actually be observed tomorrow. I will still be teaching the lesson I planned originally. Maybe afterwards, school won’t be so stressful, but for some reason I can’t quite believe that.