This week has been rough. As I wrote last week, I was out sick from work three days, so all this week I’ve been playing catch up — trying to dig myself out of the hole while also keeping head above water with everything new that’s happening1. The group of kids I have this year are really likeable, but they’re incredibly immature. I’m dealing with a lot of classroom management challenges, which has rarely been an issue for me2. I’m struggling to keep them in their seats and have a coherent lesson without interruptions. One class in particular is incredibly challenging and it’s really starting to wear on me. I love what I do, in a general sense, but lately, I’m not happy to go to work. I dread the middle portion of my day in particular (tough class and then immediately into lunch duty). The highlights have been few and far between; I’m constantly disappointed in myself that I’m not doing a better job even though I know a lot of these struggles are bigger than me and my classroom. On top of that, I’ve had a bunch of not fun expenses crop up this week — a $2500 repair bill on my car, we had our septic tank pumped, and we’re trying to get a plumber in because our shower drain isn’t draining — and other adult shit3. All in, this week has been filled with an overwhelming number of stressors piling together.
I missed a week, so consider this two weeks of week notes.
Doing
I was dead sick this week; I missed three days of work to some kind of upper respiratory illness that’s going around the school. I haven’t been sick in months, so maybe that’s a part of it, but this genuinely kicked me on my ass, and my mom ingrained workaholic tendencies in me so severe that I feel guilty taking sick days. Alas, I am continuously humbled by the reality of existing in a human body.
This was the first full week of school, so naturally that consumed most of my time. Things are going well enough so far; I have one class that’s really challenging, but the rest are smooth sailing.
I saw an optometrist for the first time in my life this week; I noticed last year that I was having trouble seeing the board at the front of my classroom toward the end of the day. I thought it might just be fatigue, but Joe encouraged me to make an appointment even so considering I’ve never been. Apparently I have crossed a new threshold of old age and now need readers. I’ve insisted for years that I want glasses, that I feel they suit my face and personality, but the moment the doctor asked me “Do you want someone to help you pick out glasses today?” I was immediately confronted with my hubris and regretted all previous comments. The pair I ordered haven’t come in yet, so expect a further meltdown next week.
I’ve backported the last of the posts from my old blog! These two were the most involved because they were long and involved creating some new shortcodes (particularly the games one).
I’ve therefore cancelled my Digital Ocean droplet2 and can stop worrying about keeping a WordPress install up to date. All links to bansheebeat.org should now redirect here. I still love the the domain name and might look for something fun to do with it one day.3
First up, a small update to my week notes format: I’m going to try to include a cover image with each post as a further homage to Never Hungover Again (from which I shamelessly stole the design of my site). I’d like to make it a random picture from the week. I’m hoping this will encourage me to take more pictures, perhaps even using the fancy camera that I paid several hundred dollars for and never touch. I took this week’s picture in the bathroom of a winery (omitted snapchat caption: “wasn’t considering it but thanks for the heads up i guess”).