Bittersweet

As nice as it was to keep my job, yesterday actually turned out to be a pretty crappy day. One of my coworkers that I'm friends with got laid off, even though she's been working there for 4 years, which I feel really bad about. My students were being bigger jerks than usual. In fact, two kids got in a fight in my 4th period class--shirts off, clothes ripped, people slammed into desks--fun stuff. One of the people in my department gave me the shared 5 week assessment that every chemistry teacher is supposed to give, only for me to realize that a) it covers none of the objectives on the 5 week plan, and b) it covers none of the objectives I've taught. I ended up spending the day frantically trying to cram vocabulary down my students' throats so they'd be ready while futilely attempting to find my department chair and ask her what the heck I was supposed to do. I briefly thought I had trapped myself in the planning room when I somehow managed to pull the door handle out of the door. And I spent the whole day bombarded with kids asking about their grades since progress reports come out this week. Then after school I had to go to the TFA office to pick up all my PLAN and EXPLORE tests, where I couldn't get on the internet to do work and accidentally left one of my favorite sweaters. By the time I got from there to National Louis, I was left with about 25 minutes to write a 4 page philosophy of education paper before going to a 5 hour grad class that ensures I never get to bed before 11:30 on Monday nights.

Needless to say, it was kind of a long and painful day. Today was a little better on the student front. I also feel a little more organized, even though I'm behind on getting make-up work for my suspended students (who were in the fight yesterday), I have 4 progress reports to write on students I barely know that I can't even find the forms for, my grades are due tomorrow at 3 and are far from finished, my room looks like a bomb of standardized tests and make-up work exploded all over it, and I have no idea what I'm doing with my biology class tomorrow. Blerg.

In cool random news though, they're filming the sequel to Meet the Fockers outside my house. I passed Ben Stiller on the way home from work today. I guess that's sort of a fair trade for making me park 2 blocks away and blocking off the street with police cars.