Best Laid Plans

If you don’t have the time to read this whole post, let me summarize it in three words -  wahhhh, wahhhh, wahhhh.  I’m being a huge whiney baby, so read at your own risk. :)

With the absence of standardized testing in 2nd grade this coming year, I began the new school year with a different outlook.  The new Common Core curriculum is very different than what we’ve been teaching the last several years so the expectation that I could “do it all” this year is unreasonable.  I decided that work was not going to be my whole life this year, and other than Thursdays (when I plan and prep for the next week) I promised myself that I would leave school by 4:00 each day.  The hours we are paid for are 7:45ish – 3:15ish, and I use '”ish” because I don’t really know what our hours are since I’m there by 7:15 each morning and stay until after 4:00.  So leaving by 4:00 each day isn’t unreasonable.  That is, it wasn’t unreasonable until school actually started.  I followed my new plan for exactly two days.  By the second day, I was already so far behind with the amount of work and prep and projects that I took about 4 hours work home with me that night and stayed until after 6:00 on Thursday and Friday.  Frustration (meaning tears) kicked in on Saturday night when, after a quick dinner out with a friend, I came home to complete some more work.  I argued with myself about, less than a week in, not following the F#$&ING plan - The devil sitting on my shoulder asking why I keep doing this to myself and the angel crying that it’s not in my nature to do anything half-ass (or to say no, as I’ve mentioned a time or two). 

After being in a class until 8:00 tonight, I came home and had to take the dog out for her walk.  I felt bad about her being on her own for a 13 hour day.  Once it’s dark, the bunnies come out and Rigby’s herding radar is on.  A group ran by us at one point which caused her much excitement prancing and jumping on the leash.  I laughed and said something to her which made her even more bouncy and she bounced up and jumped right into the side of my knee.  Rigby’s not a big dog but she is full of muscle and bouncing force.  Whatever the joint she jumped into it made my knee buckle and sent me toppling over to the right, sliding across the asphalt, leaving me with a gnarly road rash on my outer thigh and hip.  Let’s just say that’s not helping things. 

Back in July I started Dan Brown’s book Inferno for book club.  I’m enjoying this fun read, but book club is on Thursday, and I still have 150 pages left before finishing.  Maybe this will force me to push the school work to the side for a couple of days.  We shall see.