Utterly Miserable
The last 24 hours or so have been completely and utterly miserable. Don’t you love how I love me some adjectives? Seriously, though, I am ready to just have my head removed and stuck in liquid nitrogen until they find a cure for my sour belly and bad back. I couldn’t sleep at all last night between the back pangs, the bloating, the burning. . . Ugh. It hasn’t been this bad since shortly after I had my gall bladder out.
I finally got to sleep, then I had a nightmare that I was teaching at a boarding school and a group of kids got me out of bed at 2 am to help them complete a project. Right when I was finally able to get to sleep in my dreams, my alarm went off in reality.
Then it was off to quite possibly the worst first grade classroom I’ve ever dealt with. I knew it would be bad when I saw the lesson plans–a generic typed up schedule with “Wks 1, Wks 2, Wk3″ and so forth as the written in directions. Not a single word about classroom procedures or anything else. The worksheets were all cut and paste type of stuff and the kids just decimated the classroom. They were so bad in the cafeteria (my lunch break, so I wasn’t responsible for them) that the vice-principal came in while they were getting ready for recess and chewed them out. That was all the excuse I needed to do something I had wanted to do all along. I made the little monsters put their heads down on their desks and just sit silently for part of their recess. Generally I hate that kind of mass punishment and would never consider doing it, but as I looked around at the kids I couldn’t find a single one who I felt deserved any recess at all. Normally when I feel overwhelmed by a class, I do a running inventory through my head where I look at every kid and try to say what that child has done to invoke my wrath. Normally I come up with “oh, that one’s sweet, and so’s that one” and by the end I just have two or three kids who are making me miserable and can be dealt with. In this situation I really have to blame their teacher. From the chaos in the room and the complete lack of planning she left for me I’d say she either doesn’t care or doesn’t know how to establish good classroom practices. It’s so funny that she teaches right next door to the BEST first grade class I’ve ever been in. At least recess was good. All the kids that I had subbed for last week came up running and gave me lots of hugs. I wanted to tell their teacher I’d trade places with her.
The rest of the week should be good, at least, assuming I can get rid of this horrible heart burn. It just won’t go away! We had Mexican food last night, but that doesn’t usually hit me like this. Even if that was the cause, I only had diet milk shakes for breakfast and lunch so the attack should have been over. I couldn’t find my Tums so had to rush over to a store as soon as school was out. I thought I was going to rip the package of antacids open at the check stand. The woman in front of me was a complete idiot. She was the type who seemed to have no freaking clue that she was actually going to have to pay for her purchases, so instead of getting ready, she stood there with her thumb up her butt until the cashier read her the price, then began the archaeological dig into her pocket for her credit card (for her $3.00 item). I am not much of a people person today. Call me the grouch!
I’m doing vocal music for two days at a school I love to sub at. The teacher is really nice and organized and I’m pretty sure she’s not going to leave me hanging. Then I’m doing two grades of ninth grade science. I like ninth graders. It will be nice to get away from the wee ones for a few days.
I have so much I need to do tonight, but I don’t know how I’m going to manage it. I want nothing more than SLEEP. I actually took a nap when I came home today, which is not something I like to do or am even capable of doing. I seemed to have no problem zonking out for two hours today, though. I am going to be so darned glad when this month is over.
By the way, does anyone else want to poke out their ear drums with an ice pick when Shania Twain’s “Party for Two” comes on the radio? The video is even worse than the song. Since when did bobbing your head around like a bobble dog become a mating signal?