40 Hours and a lot of chocolate

Done, finally, finally DONE!!!!  

Every last report card.  (Well, at least the first draft.)

Another 40 hours I'll never get back -- and let me tell you what a pleasure it was writing the final 8 of those hours from home on the one day our building decides to test the fire alarm on every floor and smoke detector in every unit in the entire building!!!  

It got to be so that I'd be racing the contractors to see how many math comments I could squeeze in between rings of the fire alarm; my max was two and a half.

reblogged from OZ Typewriter

Done, and desperate for chocolate to sustain myself after four consecutive days of 5 hours of sleep per night, I scavenged the kitchen for treats.  The last of the seven boxes of "pot-of-gold" (definitely not my most favourite chocolate, but it'll do in a pinch, and there's plenty of it around Christmas time if you're a teacher!!!) had long been consumed, and the cupboards were bare.

I was beginning to panic.  

reblogged from 110 Pounds and Counting

Suddenly, I remembered a small box of three little Lindt chocolate bears one of my students had given me along with a Starbucks card.  The latter was in my wallet; the former was tucked away with a bag of toys in my closet, intended for a set of 7-year-old triplets I know -- we'd intended to get together with them over the holidays, but schedules did not align, and the visit had never come to fruition, so I'd buried the bag at the back of my closet somewhere until we had a chance to meet up later on some time.

So to my closet I went, dove into the back corner, and started ransacking.

Victorious I emerged moments later, the Lindt box in my hand!

I ripped open the box, tore the paper of the first bear, and gobbled it down.

Delicious!

reblogged from becuo

I managed to reserve a little more dignity for the other two Lindt bears, and consumed them alongside some rye toast and peach jam.  A glass of milk rounded out the post dinner, end-of-report card celebratory snack.

For the record, here are some of the things I'd do with those 40 hours if I had them back:

reblogged from meggin.com

• read another chapter in the informative but dense Marian Small Math book for teachers I've been working my way through
  
• develop a more user-friendly assessment/reporting template for my classroom, that I would serve as both an assessment recording tool and an end-of-unit report to families in terms of how their child is doing in math
  
• teach myself Learn 360, Edmodo or some other online platform that enables more effective communication with students/families using technology
  
• make phone calls to several parents to touch base about how their child is doing in my class
  
• meet with families and students to report progress and next steps in person!!!
  

But I can't get 'em back.  The powers that be -- determined to engage teachers across the province in meaningless busywork -- stole them from me, and they're gone forever.  So all those things will have to wait.  

Pity, that.

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