ZOMG THE OVERWHELMZ

I’m at work today.

In my classroom. Doing things.

Or trying to.

ZOMG THE OVERWHELMZ.

Nobody was in the office but I was able to peek through the glass window of the principal’s office and see my schedule. Good news/bad news. Luckily all my classes are clumped together, so I don’t have to change gears in the middle of the day and then change back. Unfortunately I have three Spanish 6 classes and one Spanish 7/8 class, instead of two and two like I expected. I don’t like having three Spanish 6 classes–doing the same thing three times one day and then again three times the next day (I have my 6th graders on an A/B day schedule) leaves me wanting to bash my head in by the sixth time. It’s so hard to keep up my enthusiasm for those last two classes of the second day. Plus, 7/8 Spanish is just way more interesting. Blerg. I thought for sure we had enough 7th and 8th graders to warrant two periods of that class.

ELD is my first class of the day. That will be…interesting.

I know I can’t complain because they are giving me 1st period prep so I can take my daughter to Kindergarten. This makes life for my family infinitely easier. Of course it makes life for me at work a great deal harder. But that’s me, taking one for the team… again.

After I checked out the new staff room (it’s much nicer than I expected–a pleasant surprise), I meandered over to my classroom. They washed the carpets and there is a lingering not-yet-dried-when-they-shut-the-windows stank, but a couple of open windows is helping air it out.  There are boxes everywhere from the storage room (that was recently made into our new staff room–see above) and I have NO IDEA what I’m going to do with them as there is no space in my small modular classroom to store them, but I’ll deal with that in the next few weeks. (Side note: If anyone knows of a good way to get used text books (in GREAT condition) to a school that needs/wants them, PLEASE let me know. I don’t use textbooks but the teacher right before me bought two class sets and I’d love to find them a new home.)

After a good twenty minutes of stressing about the boxes, I all but forced myself to do something productive. I was really proud of myself for choosing a task, pulling resources and getting to work. Then I had to print the Common Core Standards for Reading and Writing and I promptly opened up my computer, typed in my blog’s url and started writing this post instead.

Oh well, I tried.

And with that I’m going to stop. Just writing for a while has cleared the cobwebs and reminded me that I CAN DO THIS. It’s difficult, but it’s manageable. Getting started is the hardest part.

Thank you all for your thoughts of my last post. Such interesting discussions in the comments! I definitely have LOTS to say as I process all your words. I’m sure you’ll hear more from me on the subject next week. And of course my Spending Post will be up shortly.

How do you help yourself get started when a task seems daunting? How do you combat feelings of ZOMG THE OVERWHELMZ!?