It began in the wee hours of the morning. One of my kids was sick, so sleep was restless at best. I'd stayed up far too late (again), too, planning a circumference lesson for my Grade 8s, so that didn't help in terms of the sleep situation.
When I finally hauled out of bed at 6:08 a.m. it was a race against time to get out the door in time for work.
Of course this was a morning when one of my kids opted for a meltdown requiring parental intervention. It is hard to be calm, patient, a great model of tranquility and optimism when your tired as #%^!… AND YOU'RE RUNNING LATE FOR WORK!!!!
But somehow I managed to pull it off with some success, get everyone's tears dried and leave the kiddies in reasonably decent spirits as I sprinted out the door, lunch bag in one hand, folder of marking in the other, while juggling phone, keys, bus token and sheer physical and mental exhaustion!
No sooner had I gotten on the bus than I realised that the data stick on which I had saved my marginally brilliant circumference lesson was still plugged into my computer.
Ugh. Too late to turn back -- I had duty before school that day, and was already running behind!
Still half asleep and now worried about when and how I would re-plan the lesson I was to teach later this morning, I rode the bus while finishing up marking some Grade 7 Math journals, and stumbled from bus to subway to Mississauga Transit bus, backpack and lunch bag in one hand, stack of math journals and orange pen in the other, phone (hopefully) in pocket, trying not to lose anything, but reticent to pack all the marking up in my backpack due to the lost time (and resultant incomplete marking) that comes with such frequent transfers.
Safely installed on a new-ish and very comfortable Mississauga Transit bus, I got deep into my marking again... when I looked up to a strange landscape, and realised that in fact I was on the WRONG BUS!!!
REALLY, PEOPLE??!!! What kind of a loser gets on the wrong bus?! In a city she's lived in her whole life?
Happily, the diversion wasn't too far out of the way, and there was a southbound bus I could intercept some stops ahead that would take me directly to school.
I got on that bus and discovered three of my students and a colleague were also riding it! :)
Managed to make it to school just in time to dump my various piles and bags and run out to morning duty. Happily, I had a planning time this morning before my Grade 8 class, so my "to do" list got bumped in favour for the more urgent "re-make in 32 minutes the circles lesson that Ms. Teschow spent 1.5 hours on last night and then idiotically left at home".
With two minutes to spare at the end of my planning time, I logged onto my email to check the status of some colour printing I had sent off to the keeper of the colour printer in the school the night before -- ambitiously, I had prepped and sent some colour printing for THREE upcoming lessons in ONE email, in order to save everyone time. 12 pages of colour printing in one fell swoop would soon be mine, with no subsequent paper chasing over the next two weeks... at least for that stuff.
Or so I thought.
My organization was my downfall: Waiting for me in my inbox was the less-than-inspiring news that anything over 6 pages required principal approval, and could I please check with Mrs. So-and-So and get back to printer lady.
Tempted as I was to simply re-send the printing request in three distinct less-than-6-page chunks, I instead took a deep breath, brewed myself some Mate, and went out into the hall to greet my Grade 8 math class.
Sometimes such days happen... And it's good when they're finally over! So I'll skip over the part about getting home to find a letter from the building under the door requiring a whole series of actions in the next 24 hours which I can't possibly and simply won't fulfill, and instead fast-forward to the part where I got to snuggle with my kids at bedtime and read the penultimate chapter of Anne together, which we started last summer on the Island, and which has become such a regular part of our routine that the boys have requested the sequel once we finish the first book. :)
A nice, calm finish to this terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day!
When I finally hauled out of bed at 6:08 a.m. it was a race against time to get out the door in time for work.
Of course this was a morning when one of my kids opted for a meltdown requiring parental intervention. It is hard to be calm, patient, a great model of tranquility and optimism when your tired as #%^!… AND YOU'RE RUNNING LATE FOR WORK!!!!
But somehow I managed to pull it off with some success, get everyone's tears dried and leave the kiddies in reasonably decent spirits as I sprinted out the door, lunch bag in one hand, folder of marking in the other, while juggling phone, keys, bus token and sheer physical and mental exhaustion!
No sooner had I gotten on the bus than I realised that the data stick on which I had saved my marginally brilliant circumference lesson was still plugged into my computer.
Ugh. Too late to turn back -- I had duty before school that day, and was already running behind!
Still half asleep and now worried about when and how I would re-plan the lesson I was to teach later this morning, I rode the bus while finishing up marking some Grade 7 Math journals, and stumbled from bus to subway to Mississauga Transit bus, backpack and lunch bag in one hand, stack of math journals and orange pen in the other, phone (hopefully) in pocket, trying not to lose anything, but reticent to pack all the marking up in my backpack due to the lost time (and resultant incomplete marking) that comes with such frequent transfers.
Safely installed on a new-ish and very comfortable Mississauga Transit bus, I got deep into my marking again... when I looked up to a strange landscape, and realised that in fact I was on the WRONG BUS!!!
REALLY, PEOPLE??!!! What kind of a loser gets on the wrong bus?! In a city she's lived in her whole life?
Happily, the diversion wasn't too far out of the way, and there was a southbound bus I could intercept some stops ahead that would take me directly to school.
I got on that bus and discovered three of my students and a colleague were also riding it! :)
Managed to make it to school just in time to dump my various piles and bags and run out to morning duty. Happily, I had a planning time this morning before my Grade 8 class, so my "to do" list got bumped in favour for the more urgent "re-make in 32 minutes the circles lesson that Ms. Teschow spent 1.5 hours on last night and then idiotically left at home".
With two minutes to spare at the end of my planning time, I logged onto my email to check the status of some colour printing I had sent off to the keeper of the colour printer in the school the night before -- ambitiously, I had prepped and sent some colour printing for THREE upcoming lessons in ONE email, in order to save everyone time. 12 pages of colour printing in one fell swoop would soon be mine, with no subsequent paper chasing over the next two weeks... at least for that stuff.
Or so I thought.
My organization was my downfall: Waiting for me in my inbox was the less-than-inspiring news that anything over 6 pages required principal approval, and could I please check with Mrs. So-and-So and get back to printer lady.
Tempted as I was to simply re-send the printing request in three distinct less-than-6-page chunks, I instead took a deep breath, brewed myself some Mate, and went out into the hall to greet my Grade 8 math class.
Sometimes such days happen... And it's good when they're finally over! So I'll skip over the part about getting home to find a letter from the building under the door requiring a whole series of actions in the next 24 hours which I can't possibly and simply won't fulfill, and instead fast-forward to the part where I got to snuggle with my kids at bedtime and read the penultimate chapter of Anne together, which we started last summer on the Island, and which has become such a regular part of our routine that the boys have requested the sequel once we finish the first book. :)
A nice, calm finish to this terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day!
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