Week 7 reflection

Not going to lie, the last thing I want to do is reflect on the week that was. Tragedy hit our high school campus this week, and I have not even begun to process my own feelings on it because I spent the last two days helping students process it. My first year on campus we had a teacher die unexpectedly, and I have helped students process the death of two students in three shorts years as well. I am not ill prepared for this type of thing, but it does not make it any less hard. How do you look at the faces of teenagers and tell them awful news without crying? You don't.

I forced myself to slow down and relax last night. After getting home from school and reading from one of the novels for one of my Lit classes until about 7pm, I forced myself to stop. My wife and I bought dinner, and watched movies until like one in the morning. It was the latest I had stayed up since New Year's Eve, and it was the longest I had gone without doing school work or lesson planning or grading since Sac State classes started in January. It took nearly one whole movie (Dark Places, based on a Gillian Flynn novel of the same name) to not feel guilty for taking the night off too. I also turned off my 6am Saturday alarm, which meant my usual Saturday routine was thrown out of whack. I needed a mental health morning, so I cut myself some slack to that end.

I went back to the regular school routine today. Prepping teaching Catcher in the Rye for my AP Lit class, putting the finishing touches on my expository writing unit for my regular eleventh grade classes, reading 100 pages of Portrait of a Lady, reading 60 pages of Phineas Finn, and I even started putting together my binder for my Into the Wild unit for next year's AP Language class, which is starting to take shape entirely based on the stuff we are doing in Teaching College Composition. Students who get a 4 or 5 on the AP exam will not take FYC at many schools, so I need to treat it like a FYC style class.

Oh last thing, after weeks of stressing out over observations, I finally have a professor who is not doing presentations during the week I have free to observe. I am going to have to pick up a third day another time, or I can see this professor teach a different FYC course during the same week, but not sure that works. Any way, during Spring break from Sac State I get to stay late at my high school to finish the yearbook due in two weeks, and during my spring break from high school, I get to get up early and do observations.

Okay actual last thing, none of this talking about being busy is me complaining. Eight years ago I was so depressed I did not get out of bed for four months. Being busy is way more awesome than that. Okay, I think it is time to go to my actual notebook journal now. Ta-Ta for now.