Bureaucracy

I think I forgot to blog yesterday. Oops. My dog ate it. I'll bring it in tomorrow. I left it in my locker.

This weekend, I had a great dinner adventure with my parents (Hi!), a half-glass of wine with an unexpected mentor (Hi!), and sat at my fire house and graded exams. I spent four hours straight grading. During those hours, I grew to hate my white cloudness (i.e. the fact that when I am within my fire department city limits, not a single person needs an ambulance). I wanted to get out with lights and sirens. No luck for me (I guess, luck for everyone else, though).

Oh, also, I got an IPAD! It's awesome! So far, it has improved my classroom by maintaining my mental health. There are some good games available for it. I let a friend play with it, and when I got up to leave the fire house, he said, "I'm gonna have to give this back, huh? But I haven't killed all the pigs yet!"

Yup, I now have a $500 Angry Birds console.

School yesterday was, for the most part, pretty good. None of my classes was a total disaster. I was really nervous going in, because I had slept terribly and I was prepared to teach four different lessons to my four classes. It ended up pretty good. My last class finished the quiz. Two classes received progress reports, which let them know how their missed assignments and lost participation points are affecting their grades.

I got some material done. I didn't finish any of my lessons, but I'll blame that on the time spent explaining the progress reports. It's nice to teach new material, but I need to speed it up if I have any hope of finishing (or coming close to finishing) the curriculum this year.

After school, I eagerly ran out of the building and headed to City Hall, like I was instructed to on Friday, to sign my contract. Then, I remembered that I'm dealing with bureaucracy here. Which, although it is a beautifully spelled word, is a PITA (It's an acronym. Google it.). I was told that the woman I needed to see had just left for a meeting and would not be returning. But, don't worry, they'd email me with an appointment time and date. Which they did, later that night, for a time that conflicts with my obligatory faculty meeting. Reschedule.

Angry, I went home and ran two miles. I cooked some crockpot lentils and roasted every vegetable in my fridge. Not a bad evening.

Today went pretty smoothly, although some classes were very unhappy about their progress reports. We'll see if they take the opportunity to work harder.

This evening is Open School Night. We're not expecting a big showing, but I'm still nervous. I'll let you know how it goes.