Back to work reality

Back to school today! And I'm so *&^%$ tired right now. My neck and throat are actually sore, and I really need to have Mr. Wonderful rub my shoulders.

I teach Spanish lit and AP at a large, highly competitive urban high school. Some of the kids would kill their own grandmother for 1/10th of a point. We average getting 30+ kids into Harvard every year out of class of just under 400. On good days, it is teaching Nirvana.

My kids were so damn funny that I'm probably sore from laughing my way through the day. Who knew that high school juniors and seniors really can be sweet, caring and nice? No, I know that they have the potential to be that way, but there are long stretches of time during the year where I don't see much of it. Today, they collectively redeemed themselves and gave me hope for mankind.

I got back to my room after being out for two weeks, and it was exactly as I had left it! Nothing was missing/broken/misplaced....so nice, so nice. The room was clean!

There was a giant piece of red foam board on the chalk ledge next to my desk that said (in Spanish) Welcome back Senora!, and then signed by every kid from my 5 classes. Ok, so they mispelled "Bienvenida" and wrote "Buenvenida" before fixing it...they still don't know the difference between good and well. Argh.

And then I went through 6 classes before having 7th period off--my toughest day that never seems to end. They were happy to see me--I even got hugs. The sub managed to get them to do some work, but not all of it. Would you believe she left behind 248 quizzes for me to grade? She marked them, but didn't put grades on them. The kids said she made things "more confusing than they had to be", and begged me not to leave them again. I said, "Weren't you mumbling behind my back about what a bitch I was before the last test?" One girl piped up, "Yeah, but now we know what we have. We won't do that again." Another class told me I was a "diamond", and the sub "was a sparkly thing you get at Claire's". The sub tried, but...I spent most of the day trying to pick up the pieces and figure out how to end things before vacation next week.

Odd thing though....not one administrator talked to me at all during the day. No emails, no stopping by to see that things were ok, nothing. No response from anyone to an email that I sent at the end of last week saying I'd be back today. Nothing. I know the place is big, and people are busy, but would it have killed someone to say anything? Talk about cold.

Off to meet with Dr. N tomorrow to talk about next steps. I printed out the LID cookbook from ThyCa.

Have to go get Mr. Wonderful for a shoulder massage....