Trouble Sleeping leads to a Lazy Friday

I could NOT get to sleep last night. This is weird because I'm normally the kind of person who can fall asleep anywhere at anytime, given the opportunity. In my world, "having trouble falling asleep" begins after laying in the dark for more than five minutes. Last night at 12:30, after about 25 minutes, I got up to watch TV. Finally at 3am I decided to take two benadryl and try again.

So, I "woke up" at 10:00 - meaning Andrew woke me up because Gilmore Girls was coming on. =) I hung out on the couch in a druggy stupor before taking a nap at 1:30 until 3:00. Then I finally got my act together, showered, went grocery shopping. We have continued the lazy theme of the day with frozen pizza for dinner and watching the Rangers game. Well, watching the first bit of the game before a rain delay in Boston.

No big projects today, but starting to think ahead to the coming school year a little bit. After my one year of being split between two schools, this coming year is looking like a walk in the park by comparison. Both halves of my job have been made full-time for 2010-2011, and when I was given the choice last spring, I chose to stick with the middle school side of things.

The best explanation I can give on that decision is this: When I have a 12 year old in my classroom who can't get their act together - whether it's behavior stuff, inability to come to class prepared, whatever - I can be pretty compassionate and I don't mind working with them, figuring out a plan to fix the problem. When I have a 16 year old student with those same problems - smart mouth, tardiness, can't show up with their folder and other materials - I have no patience. In my head all I can think is that this kid has a license, maybe a job, they're supposed to be an "adult" in two or three years... how are they STILL A FOOL?!?! So, I found I was not my usual happy uplifting funny teacher self at the high school... I was more in Carnage Mode most of the time.

This year, it's all middle school all the time. I'll have six choir classes, which is also a huge victory, in that I'm not teaching some other course to fill my schedule - enough kids signed up for choir to make six classes feasible. I'm not gonna lie, some of these classes will be pretty small, but I'll take it. Basically, I'll have three classes of sixth graders, probably with only 20 kids or so per class, which is a little smaller than I'd like, but it will work. I'll have one class with all the 7th and 8th grade boys in it, about 25 boys, which is a vast improvement over last year's initial enrollment of four boys, all of whom were 8th graders. I ended last year with 11 boys in my 7th/8th grade group. My other two classes will be groups of 7th and 8th grade girls together - one class of about 25 girls and then a more "advanced class" of only 15 or so. Hopefully I've picked up a few more kids over the summer, as choir programs often do. Time will tell.