I should be sleeping.

2005-02-01 at 12:04 a.m.

Insomnia is another gift of this new career, in addition to what I call the Teaching Diet.

No time to eat lunch + pacing around classes and through the hallways for six hours straight - any chance to snack whatsoever = much fewer bites going into my mouth.

It's turning into not the healthiest diet I've ever been on. Emily gives me the knowing, "You know I'm going to give you grief over doing this to yourself, right?" look every now and then, while admonishing me to take the time to eat. And I don't really skip lunch, it's just I get 20 minutes to eat lunch in addition to administer make up tests in addition to make any copies I need to make in addition to tweaking lesson plans in addition to...

sigh. So I don't probably eat enough, anyway. And definitely not of the right stuff.

Hence, probably, the insomnia. I know I'm not taking the best care of myself. I just couldn't sleep tonight. This week is parent teacher conferences, and I have to admit to being a little tensed up over them. I'm nervous about challenges from parents, I'm nervous about kids, I'm nervous about myself and being cowed (although I'm much more likely to pick a fight, and honestly, I'm nervous about that, too). Ack. Just listing what I'm nervous about makes me nervous.

Plus my geometry kids are drowning--drowning. We're about a week behind where we need to be. I think I can catch up, but we need to move on. I designed a test that I think kids can do well on, really demonstrating stuff they know. Half is a take-home test where they have to use what they know about parallel lines et cetera to design a logo for a construction company using the initials EAW. Okay, it's a direct crib from the text book company, but it's good. I designed a good rubric for grading it that I'm going to give the kids before hand so they know what I'm looking for, and then they get to choose whether this logo design is worth 10% of their grade or 50% or anywhere in between. That way if they don't want to spend time on it, they don't have to, and if they want to kick ass on it, they can, but they are still responsible for the stuff on the test. I'm pretty proud of it. I think the kids will like it.

Algebra was a nightmare today. I had to send two kids out of the classroom because they were just wee demons. I mean, one kid--whom normally I like!--finally sat in his seat ten minutes after the bell rang with a clatter of rulers he had stolen from around the room, announcing now he was ready to use them as ammunition against me. I just turned to him and said he could put the rulers back and then go directly to the office to speak with Ms. S----, my boss, about his philosophy on how classes start. I called her from the classroom phone to let her know that he was coming, and then went right back to teaching. Later, as we were taking notes, another kid (who, frankly, doesn't really belong in Algebra) refused to take out his notebook. Are you refusing me? Yes. Okay, then this is a waste of time for you and you should go sit in the C100 offices. Buh bye!

Something's up with him, the more I think about it. Dammit, I hate it when they become people to me!

Anyway. Today started well, but ended on that horribly rotten no good note, and now I'm not looking forward to parent teacher conferences. Except that as a reward for the conferences, we get Friday off. Yahooo!

I can make it that far. Assuming I don't fall asleep at the wheel on the way to work this week.

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