News and Notes

I've been having one of those weeks in which I question whether or not I'm supposed to be doing this job. I won't go into details, but frankly, it has sucked. Most of my anxiety stems from my lack of professionalism and my age. I forget sometimes that I am in charge and not a teenager, and therefore can't treat my students as peers. This may sound bizarre, but it is a daily struggle to turn on the filter and not say what I'm thinking. On top of all of that, I'm really behind in grading things (there is literally a stack more than an inch and a half high of things to read, the majority of which were completed with a half-hearted effort), and I'm more busy than ever with show things.

I also found out today that I have to schedule an observation for sometime before spring break, which is just what I don't need at this moment when I feel most inadequate. Perhaps what I'm going through results from an overload of criticism (how else should I interpret, "Miss, this is boring" and "when are we actually going to do anything in this class"?) and complete lack of affirmation. My students want something from me, but I don't know what it is, and I doubt I would be able to deliver even if I did.

Anyway, now for something different. I was playing with the cat earlier and realized that my two favorite nicknames for him are rhyming couplets: fat cat and pretty kitty. Maybe that last one isn't quite right, but it sounds the same, so I go with it. That small fact makes me pretty happy. It's almost like God's little gift to people who like rhyming.