what would the students do if I just closed my eyes and took a nap?

I think the Heavens must have known I would be nearing a mental break down at work this week so they made sure that Spring Break would start on Thursday. Today went something like this.

I left on time for work, yet was 10 minutes late.

Thank you traffic jam that turned my 30 minute commute into an over an hour long one!

10 minutes late at work isn't a big deal at most jobs. But when you have a classroom full of 8th graders waiting for you, it's kind of a big deal. Luckily a coworker covered my first few minutes.

Right a first period ends I notice a voicemail on my work phone. I won't go into details about this but basically this voicemail accused me of many things outside my control and the next 3 hours were spent dealing with this mess.

My students were snippy and hormonal today. My patience was already thin. I almost yelled at them all to shut up when they were bickering about stupid things instead of working. Stop being teenagers guys!

They are getting so much busy work from other teachers. Which means my time is spent helping them do said busy work. WHY WHY WHY do teachers assign worksheet after worksheet with no real instruction in between? Excuse me while I stand on my soapbox: WORKSHEETS DON'T TEACH CHILDREN. TEACHERS TEACH CHILDREN. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO TEACH, THEN DON'T BE A TEACHER. Okay, done.

Pregnancy brain is in full force. I had a student give me work for his history class. And then.. I lost it. You guys, I don't lose anything! I am know around these parts (and in my own apartment too) for my OCD organization! I can't find these papers for the life of me. I had to go to my coworker, explain it to him, and beg him to give the kid credit even without the actual assignments. Luckily, he trusts me.

Grades are due for 3rd quarter today. This is happy because I am all caught up on grading and that means that it's almost time for the last quarter of the year! But I printed and wasted tons of ink on 2nd quarter's grades. Come on, Kaitlin.

I have 3 papers due in my endorsement class tonight. Guess how many I had done as of this morning? ZERO. I had a very busy lunch period.

A student asked me if he had enough paragraphs in his essay. I asked if he had 5. He said he didn't know. I told him to count them. He got super annoyed that he had to count how many paragraphs there were instead of me walking over to his desk to count. For the record, he only had 3.

Because I was having an off day, I thought I deserved a candy bar. So I ate one. Then I felt guilty for letting myself have food as a reward. Then I told myself to shut up. Then I felt a little bit sick to my stomach from eating said candy bar.

Yesterday I was at work from 7am-6pm. I only get paid to be there from 7:30-3:30. Gotta love being on salary and contracted hours!

Tomorrow is the last day of the quarter. A student seriously asked me today how he could raise his 46% in science to a B. And he was serious. And when I told him it was impossible, he got mad.

Spring break starts Thursday and runs until Wednesday. It could not be more needed. Nathan is taking off two of those days to have a mini staycation at home with me. It will be the celebration of our 1 year anniversary and enjoying time just us two before the baby. I could not be more excited!! We originally were going to go out of town but decided the gas, hotel, and food money could be spent on more fun things by just staying at home! Ohhh I need this vacation. I am such a whiner.

Speaking of work and my husband. My husband came to work the other day! He needed to do community service hours for a class he is taking. So he did them in my room. It was so fun for him to meet my kiddies and for him to do stuff for me that I didn't want to do. He did fluency timings on alllll my kids. He cleaned the desks. He scraped gum off the desks. He entered grades. He organized files. It was awesome. Plus, I got to spend the whole day with my sweet husband. Including lunch at In-N-Out. Ohhhh my gosh I love food so much.

So there's a positive ending to this not-so-positive post. Now go and eat a candy bar.