Work-related whining, before I get to a point.

So. The reason for making that post this morning was not because I expected to put you all on the edges of your seats, counting down the seconds until the next post came up. I'm pretty egotistical, but it hasn't gotten that bad just yet. I made it because I was in the shower thinking about what I wanted to say, and I realized that there's a hell of a lot of it, and I didn't want any of it to slip my mind.

Unfortunately, I had a rough day at work of the variety I don't usually encounter much anymore, but it is exam week, after all, and we all know what kind of madness can go down with the weoneomin's schedule during exam week. Yesterday, I realized that while my lesson for the low level firsties was okay, it was confusing the fuck out of some of them. And they're new to me. If it had been my second or third graders, I would have expected them to suck it up and do one hard activity. But given that the babies are still a bit nervous about me and my class, I didn't want to go through the entire week intimidating the hell out of them and making them feel stupid. So, this morning I went in ready to organize a completely different lesson which wouldn't be so awful for them. I had first period off. Great. Plenty of time to get everything together. Unfortunately, I had some mystery class moved over from some mystery date, and, five minutes after the bell rang, I was informed by some stuttering red faced first graders that I was meant to be in their classroom.

Cue a mild upheaval of my office, while I desperately tried to get the stuff from the shit lesson together, to go and teach it one more time, even though I really didn't want to, and me trying to desperately get the shit together for the new lesson during ten minute increments between my other classes. Not a horrible day, but a relatively exhausting and stressful one. And some of the firsties have come off their initial weoneomin high just in time for the co's to start leaving the classroom after the first five minutes. Which means today was Laying Down The Law Day. They all took it really well, but it's a bummer to have to be "strict" for five classes in a row. I really didn't feel like it today, but I had a feeling if I let the behavior (relatively mild -- whispering and goofing a bit during listen and repeat) slide, things would've been a lot worse by the time next week rolled around.

So. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. I promised you guys something of substance rather than more workday whining today. But I need to organize this somewhat. I think I'll break it up. First up: the stupidly easy, while I ingest some coffee and try to get my brain back in functioning order, before tackling the stickier stuff. And that will be, "I'm no Picasso: I'm also no Dating Blogger." Here we go.