I never really leave the school...

Goal of the week: To get the list of goals for my Masters degree program (tm) so that I can start working on them during my stint teaching at this school. That hasn't been going very well. My graduate advisor, who was supposed to observe me on Wednesday, disappeared. I finally got an email from her saying that she had been ill and that she hadn't been answering email. She said that she sent another person around in her place to observe people. I didn't get seen so I'm wondering what happened.

Topic of the day: So much work to do and so little time to do it in.

My schedule during the day is that I officially teach from 730 in the morning until 230 in the afternoon. However, there's all the papers to grade, the lessons to create, the materials for the lesson to prep, and the catching up with students that have been absent to do.

This does not count the work that I do for my graduate program: homework, projects, presentations, papers, and reading.

My schedule this semester and last has been all over the place. I've been trying to balance all of this work with my *real life*. Not that I currently have much of one, but there are still groceries that need to be gotten, bills that need to be sorted and paid, phone calls of relatives and friends wondering if I'd died to return, and on rare occasions - social events to attend.

This work all needs to get done someplace conducive to studying. I need a place that's quiet, calm, and free of distraction. With all of the running that I do, I used to bring my work home with me but it never got done. I would be so exhausted by the time I got home that I'd just fall over into bed or be to mentally drained to sit and think coherently. This is a first for me since I've always done my academic work/studying/organizing right before I went to bed in graduate school and undergraduate. I'd get home from whatever job I'd held and spread out on my bed to study.

That doesn't work with all of this. I've had to go beyond my normal comfort zone to find another space and time to work because I got sick of always being behind in my lesson plans, grading, graduate homework, bills, and sleep from trying to force myself to work when I'm mentally and physically drained.

Sometimes in life, you have to go beyond your normal boundaries and break a long-established pattern. It's good to remember that as an adult because the students are going through that on almost a daily basis (the ones that are trying to help themselves out of their situation, anyway).

My solution: for the past week I've been staying after school until 5 or 6, sometimes 7. After 3, it's usually quiet as a tomb and no one is around. I'm stuck there so it helps me to work being in the education environment. I just wisht the office downstairs didn't shut down and close up at 330. I need to make copies.

The other teachers have started to comment on my late hours in the school. Apparently, there's a rumor that I never really leave. Oh well. I've got thick skin from people making fun of me in graduate school, undergrad, and high school. It's just another case of people not understanding how I need to work.