There comes a point in the day...

when you sit down to start commenting upon 7th grade rock cycle papers, and you realize that you have been working basically constantly since 7:45 in the morning, and it is now 10 at night, and I am not talking about checking email while sipping coffee and reviewing the day's agenda kind of working, I mean standing up in front of pre-adolescents while conducting their activities and monitoring their behavior for five hours with a break to run a lunch meeting with other teachers, all followed by leading a PD session on technology in the classroom, followed by planning after school high school prep and writing a couple of lesson plans and typing up an organizational chart for the sixth grade team and talking for an hour with a filmmaker interested in documenting robotics... yes, that kind of working... and your mind and body just say,

enough.

Take a shower.

Read something for fun.

Go to sleep.





And by the way, one of the best things about late fall is that we get to wear our winter clothes, which come in dark colors, like black, which gives every single sixth grader a chance to helpfully point out that we have brushed chalk all over our behind, knee, waist, elbow, shoulder, back, and the best part of ALL is that they get to point this out one at a time and no matter how annoying it may be, we get to sigh and realize that they are just trying to be helpful and smile and say thank you, I have chalk pretty much everywhere, it's what happens when you become a teacher but at least I get to work with nice, smart kids like you...