It's Crunch Time!

Let me start with:  I ain't getting any younger.  Damn.

I hate to be that person who rambles on about the glory days for eons, but I've really been feeling it this week.

I hate to be that other person, but trying to get 14 little boys to behave on a hike is like herding cats.  "Stay on the trail. . .stay on the trail. . .stay on the trail. . .STAY ON THE TRAIL" was sort of my whole day yesterday.  Even though we walked at a the pace of a snail, I was exhausted by the time I got home.  Then there was no time to relax because Philip was doing his first ever cupping.  It was a successful evening all the way around, but by the time we got home it was 9:30.

For us old people, that's late.

I'm tired.

But the workload is going to start. . .now.  For the past three weeks, I've essentially been babysitting.  I got some great prep work the last week of June, but since then I've really been slowing down.  I probably shouldn't even be sitting here, blogging, when I could be making grammar worksheets.  And last night, even though I'd made up my mind to stay up and work hard. . .I just couldn't get my butt in gear.  I even had a cup of coffee (god it was delicious) but it just wasn't enough to get me to read some more of my book.  I traded a relatively early night (10:30) for a few hours of much needed work.  Uh-oh.

For the next two weeks, I have training (yay!), then one week of time to get my classroom ready (yikes!) then school starts (yay again!).  Pretty much from now until next June I'm booked solid.

I'm still so excited.  I just bought some school supplies: post-it notes, dividers, notebooks, and lots of red pens!

For the record, I don't understand all the hullabaloo about red pens.  Remember all that nonsense a few years ago about how red ink on papers was traumatic to young minds because it was pointing out all the things they did wrong?  Newsflash: that's what it's supposed to do. If it's pointing out all the right things, that seems a bit redundant.  Maybe I'm just a dork, but I liked seeing the red ink on my papers.  It meant that I could improve.  Sure, there's that first twinge of "aw man" and then sometimes the "I really thought I had fixed that," but after those have passed and you sit down and really think about it, aren't you glad that now you have the chance to make something better instead of passing off a mediocre piece of writing as something excellent?  I always am.

In related news, I am not a teacher so that I can babysit and coddle.  If you want me to hold your hand and spoon-feed you, newsflash again, it ain't gonna happen.  I see nothing wrong with a little sweat, blood, and tears.  Mostly the sweat and tears.  You know, the classes that caused me the most grief in high school are inevitably the ones I look back on as having influenced me the most (I wish I could say the same for college, but alas the ones that were the most influential required no less sweat but way less tears).  Things really do feel better when you have genuinely earned them.  Praise is so much sweeter when you know it is well deserved.

And that's why I use red pen.

Welp, here goes resolution #2: drink more coffee.  Where's that pitcher of toddy?