2002-03-19
Drained day, posted at 1:23 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Wow, am I ever tired. Just... drained.I went to the gym last night, spending an hour on the eliptical machines. Then I went grocery shopping at Trader Joe's - always a treat, just not on a school night. I returned home at around 9pm (missing Boston Public, which I find horrible but oddly entertaining), and fell asleep by 10pm. Still, the night was restless. I thought our mice problem had been eradicated, but Holden - usually oblivious to mice - pranced across the floor over and over again last night, so I think they're back. I might have to break down and just get a cat. I like them, and this seems like as good an excuse as any to get one.
Yesterday, in the flurry to get my portfolio done, I did some mildly unethical student work fabricating. I call it only mildly so because portfolios are bunk to begin with, and all I had the kids do was copy something down off the board, which I later used in my portfolio from last semester. Oh well. I'll be much better at playing the bs-portfolio game next year.
Because I had to get it done, I spent most of yesterday giving my kids an in-class timed writing assignment. We call them ECRs. It worked out nicely; the kids got to practice for all the damned timed writing tests they'll be taking, and I was able to finish up.
Today was Career Day, and it made me very wistful. We had three wonderful and dynamic speakers - an information technician from the electric company in town, a college counselor, and a teacher/actress. One of them commented that the average person now has five careers, and these three people all had had multiple careers. It made me feel a bit inadequate, because I just can't imagine doing anything else. The one vote of confidence (which sort of balanced out the statement from an African-American man to my 100% African-American students that "back in the day, a black person was really considered something else if he could be, say, a mailman. Or a teacher." He immediately apologized and said he is looking to go into teaching... still it wasn't the type of comment that my kids needed to hear) was that all three wanted to become teachers.
Well, I need to get back to clearing off the stacks and stacks of papers upon my desk. I'm looking forward to coaching tonight. I got my uniform yesterday! My jersey number matches my age. Woo-hoo!