Well, hello there, blogger readers. Are you still there?
I have no perfect words to describe how I feel about the fact that it has been OVER 6 MONTHS since I posted on blogger. Shock? Frustrated. Sad. That has NEVER happened before. I can't believe it happened THIS time. But I guess it just goes to show how BUSY my life has been the last 6 months. Like REALLY, REALLY busy. I know several of you reading this know what that is like. Why do we let life get like this? I hate it, really.
Thus, here begins my catch-up posts. I'm going to entitle this one.....WORK.
Just got to get it off my chest first. (Not for the weary-at-heart readers.)
The last couple of months have been extremely stressful due mostly to my work schedule and responsibilities at school. Yes, I knew going back to work after being at home with your baby for 2 years would be hard. But boy, is that an understatement! The long and short of it is it has been a very demanding school year so far. To start with, the school where I am teaching is in a very low-income and highly disadvantaged area, and the expecations they have on us as teachers is simply unrealistic. They have huge expectations for our students, and in order to meet those goals, we have had planning meetings, data-analyzing meetings, getting chewed-out meetings, special seminars, etc. nearly every planning period and both before/after school. We are required to tutor after school and participate in Saturday school a few times a year. It's just all together TOO MUCH. On top of this, I had to take 40 hours of classes since the middle of October in order to be qualified to teach math in our district and gifted and talented students, which apparently my position turned into "unexpectedly". The deadline for all these classes was also the last day of school for the month, Dec. 18th...so for the last 2 months, every spare minute I wasn't working on lesson plans, grading papers, or calling parents, I have been online trying to complete these requirements. I even had to work on about 10 hours during Thanksgiving break at my inlaws house. It has been crazy.
And it has been all consuming at times. I feel like I have hardly spent time with my husband or Noah in the last 2 months without having school on my mind. Matt has been REALLY good to me during this time. He has taken up so much at the house and with Noah and there is NO WAY I could have made it thru this time without his support. Frankly, I'm not sure how we made it at all. Most days, driving to school, I just prayed that I wouldn't quit that day. It has been so tempting. But we did it. I turned in my final documents on Thursday and finished my final wikispace posts by the 5:00pm deadline Friday---about 15 min. early. And although I have a huge stack of papers to grade that I have gotten behind on, I have hope that next semester can't possible be as difficult. I'm hoping after Christmas, my family will help me get caught up so that I can start the next half of the year without being so behind.
So, all that being said, any teachers out there wanna give a shout out to unrealistic expectations! What struggles have you had this year? I know my father-in-law has had a very difficult year as well. If you're not a teacher, let me tell you---they truly have the most difficult job. I don't know that I would ever know this if I wasn't in education. And it gets worse all the time. I love it, and I hate it! I think that can be said for many jobs, but maybe not so many times each day ;-)
Okay, now on to happier posts!
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