Sometimes it's better to not say anything at all...

I have a long post written about how pointless and annoying our curriculum retreat was this year (in past years, it has actually been quite productive and re-invigorating). But sometimes, if you have nothing nice to say, it's better to say nothing (or very little). I should be on the train to Inwood & various Bronx neighborhoods to check out possible places to move, but instead I'm sitting here trying to do my schoolwork quickly enough to still have time for that trip. I hate having my time wasted. And I hate workshops that end without any kind of feedback/evaluation process.

We are studying climate and climate change in the seventh grade, and wrapping up bonding in the sixth. It's on to solutions, mixtures, phases of matter, acids & bases, chemical reactions, etc. I'm in the middle of planning about a dozen lessons for each grade. The climate change unit requires a lot of work because I want them to look at real data and learn strategies for interpreting new graphs, tables, and diagrams without being intimidated. Also, it seems hard to find rigorous information on climate change that is written at an appropriate reading level, so I end up cobbling together a lot of different sources of information. The textbooks we have barely skim the surface of this topic.

I also need to:

• do laundry
  
• eat (it's possible to forget)
  
• study for Turkish class - this can be done on the long train ride to Inwood
  
• figure out how/where to get my shots for India
  
• grade a whole lot of stuff
  
• get this all done early enough to maybe have a little free time to spend with someone I really like who has been out of town...

*sigh*