Thumbs down
Let’s get the negative out of the way.
Three weeks into my raised does and I’m feeling better, but some symptoms linger. I’m still have hot flushes all the time. Like once an hour? I’m so tired of suddenly feeling like I’m burning up from the inside out. I think yesterday it might have been less. Today was a little better too. Maybe next week will be a lot better. We shall see.
A bunch of yearbooks were stolen this past week. They were taken out of other students’ bags. Kids were really upset (rightfully so), and only in rare cases were the yearbooks found. It really sucked and got me really down.
Yesterday was a really rough last day of school. I had to deal with returning a stolen yearbook (that had dicks drawn all over it), listen to a kid give a formal apology for writing truly horrific, hateful things in OVER 20 KIDS’ YEARBOOKS, then watch seven men come in and ravage my room, pushing all my furniture into a pile while I pleaded with them to stop. The last one was really awful. I have never felt so violated at work before, and that is saying something.
Lately I’m feeling really tired of being the only adult in the room, literally and figuratively. It’s exhausting. And thankless. Teaching is really hard work and I am exhausted. I hope this summer is restorative. I hope the skills I learned this year with some of my harder students help me handle everyone next year.
It was a lot of work to get my room ready this year. I wasn’t quite sure how much more I had to do than normal (communication has not been great, which is why I felt so violated when those people came to move my furniture – they were supposed to come today after we had time to shut our classrooms down and move our stuff out of the way). I think I’m good to go now, but leaving it like this makes me nervous. I care a lot about my classroom and my stuff! I don’t want them to fuck it up!
Thumbs Up
Our staff party yesterday was fun. It was nice to see people and talk. Then I met the husband at an event in the Mission. It was so nice to hang out with him, have some drinks and get some dinner. We’ve been trying to do that for a while and it finally happened.
I entered a tech support ticket for every computer in my cart that is broken. That was 17 support tickets. I know tech appreciates when we actually put in separate tickets so the volume of the requests they receive is measurable. It took a long time, and was a giant pain in the ass, but I am really glad I did it. (I don’t actually know if Tech will be fixing Chromebooks over the summer, but at least I tried!) Seriously my Chromebooks are in rough shape.
I went for a run today. The weather was beautiful. I got in 5 miles, which is the longest I’ve run in a while. I didn’t feel great but I didn’t feel awful (it was an out and back so the fact that I made it to the 2.5 mile marker means I must have felt decent). After, I did the Caroline Girvan dead bug workout AND a 10 minute arms and shoulder burner on Peloton. I’m super proud I manage that because I was tired.
Part of why I did the extra strength work after my run is because I won’t be training at the dojo tomorrow. Classes are cancelled so we can attend the No Kings protest that starts at a park not far from the dojo. I’m glad we’ll be marching, and I think the 15yo will be joining us. I brought home materials from school to make signs tonight. Shit is so, so grim right now and it feels good to be doing something to show my dissent.
I’m officially on summer break. It feels weird. I keep feeling like I need to grab my computer but… I don’t. I almost started on my closet tonight, but decided that could wait. Tomorrow will be a long day (I need to teach at the dojo before the march and hope to see the author of my book club pick for this month speak at the Main Library after the march), so I’m letting myself relax today. Also the 15yo and I might watch The Matrix tonight, which she has not seen (and is an enduring favorite of mine). It’ll probably take a week or so to decompress, and then we’ll be traveling and it will really feel like summer break. I can’t believe I made it!
