Evening Now...

Well, the writing assessments got printed, and my little sweeties were duly impressed. Or not. I got the distinct feeling that they were not impressed with much today. It was either the pernicious influence of the full moon, Monday, or both. Or they were full of crap. I suggested the latter to them. They got to stick around a little longer than they bargained for, but other than that, no lasting damage seemed to have been done. Another day, and only eight more Mondays to go. The possibility and the promise of summer vacation is beginning to loom very large. I was starting to get itchy for it yesterday, and now my spouse has officially joined me. I love it here, but a little time off would be nice. Mmmm...yes indeed.

Update:

The day is frantically busy, or I am frantically slow, and everything is going faster than me. I can't tell. On the plus side, it is lunchtime, which gives me two more classes for which I am directly responsible. On the other hand, I forgot to print out the writing assessment. That has to be in by Friday, so I have some leeway. I can keep them working on research, and print out the prompts pretty quickly. Ah, organization...and then, there is the laundry...the good thing is that I am revitalizing with some fish chowder, and I feel the old fighting spirit coming back on.

Busy Weekend

And now it's over...time to get after it for another week. I had a good steam at Joe's last night,so I was nice and relaxed, but now it is time to get about the business of trying to figure this stuff out. Laundry, too, and the test of all tests is two weeks away from tomorrow. We will begin preparation in more earnest as we approach. I have been negligent in posting here, but life keeps intervening. I will try to have more to say about that later.

Sometimes All We Do Is Fight...

One of those days today. I keep thinking about a classroom in which we have constantly struggled to arrange seating to keep certain kids away from other kids only to find that the new mix has its own latent toxicity. About a group whose favorite pastime during gym class is to yell taunts at each other, preferably as loudly as possible. About the kids that are striving, and who end up getting short shrift for the attention seekers, who will get it by any means necessary. About the likelihood that they are much smarter than we are, and are just running us all around in circles.

We spend a lot of time on discipline, and it seems to just plain dominate some days. Our village is actually one with a pretty good reputation for calm and civility, and that is a pretty good thing. I think that a lot of people here try very hard to build a good life for their kids, and it shows. But it isn't universally true, and that shows, too. Thank God that it doesn't predominate.

I think that a big part of the mix is kids going through that junior high time of life, when they are trying on an ill-fitting suit of adult clothes, not sure what to think of what they look like in the mirror. They are not sure at all what to make of themselves, and I may be in the same boat. There are so many advice-givers crowded into my head, some of whom contradict one another with great consistency. Maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe I spend too much time trying to structure, and not enough relaxing and enjoying the unexpected moments. Maybe I need to get my sense of humor back, and remember that these are still children, despite the changing voices and physiques. Maybe that would all give us a few more laughs out of the day.

Nine weeks. Time enough to figure it out, maybe. Time to get the 8th graders on to high school. Time to make room for a new batch of 6th graders, some of whom were already speculating about the experience in line today.

An aside: we had a crew from National Geographic channel shooting video here today. I am not sure what it will all amount to ultimately, but it is apparently footage for the Alaska State Troopers program. They are apparently also going to come back and do some explanation about how the whole filming and editing process works. We will see what footage actually makes it to the television screen.

Today is the end of the third quarter of the school year, which will make for a busy weekend of catching up grades and entering them into various places. It is all due by Monday morning. We also have fundraisers for both juniors and seniors this weekend, which means that we are both on duty. It will be a grind, but it will be just fine. It is worth it.

Another Day...

Kids at near end-of-year levels, and we are nine weeks out. It is a little mystifying, although the time change could be contributing. It may be a simple case of massive spring fever. Attendance has been off strongly for the first two days of the week, too.

My darling still has a cold, but it is really beginning to resemble a sinus infection much more at this time.

Our friends are back from up north for the funeral of her grandma, and they are glad to be back. I am glad that they are back, too.

Time to get through the rest of the week now...

Uff Da...

The little darlings weren't all so darling today. Even the ones who tend to be the good kids were flaky. I suppose that it might have had something to do with the time change and the fact that it is now light at nine o'clock at night. Although the change is new, the daylight hours are increasing at the rate of nearly six minutes each day. I am not so sure that it is going to get any easier to get kids to bed, and sleepy kids are a major and consistent bane of my existence. It was mostly a relief to be quit of them at 4 o'clock, and I usually find that I enjoy the after-school hours with my kids quite a bit. We will see what tomorrow brings. Whatever else is true, there are only nine Mondays left in the school year.

My poor companion in crime is sick with a nasty cold. The staff and students here just seem to be passing crud around in an endless loop. Even though my pneumonia has cleared, I still have a persistent cough. My understanding is that it can take up to four weeks to get rid of the stuff entirely, so I will be patient for now and hope for the best.

My kids seem to be taken with the enormity of the damage in Japan, and I suspect that it is a good subject to explore with them, as they keep bringing it up. It is horrifying to see the catastrophic damage that has taken place there, and unimaginable to think what it must be like to be living in the midst of it. The prospect for people living in the vicinity of the nuclear plant that is failing must be especially grim.

I suspect that it would behoove us to keep the people of that stricken place in our thoughts and prayers as the situation develops in the coming months. It will likely take years before the damage is sorted out and repaired, and it may never happen for a large section of the population.

Up At My Usual 4 A.M.

This is a habit that I should consider changing...time to go back to bed...