You know it was a good day if before 11am I was at my computer and googling, "is it a full moon?".

They were all ridiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiculous this morning - M had a 'mommy visit' with her birth mom last night, and that always leaves her an emotional wreck, J apparently hates me because of last week when I tried to make her read a non-fiction text (gasp!  What a jerk I am!), and An came to school without his meds and was OFFTHEWALL.  I have not missed interacting with him when he is like that.

In other news, I HATE writing IEPs, I feel completely unsupported by everyone (everyone's fine giving me 90 suggestions/requirements and then walking away, but there's no way I am able to do all of these things), I am understaffed and taxed to the max, and oh yeah, it's fucking freezing and I hate being cold.

I'm actually not miserable; stressed out more than you can imagine, but I still love my job - does that make sense?  I think I just know that it can only get better from here, so I'm able to convince myself to just stick it out.  But it DOES have to get better than this.  People need to either handle some things themselves, or stop needing them, because there is only so much I can do.

I haaaaaaaaaaaate changes to plans.



I know, completely normal, but this really stresses me out.

Kathleen was supposed to 'be me' today (my staff get paid an additional 15 dollars when they cover for a teacher for 1 - 3 hours, hell yes I'm going to get one of THEM to get that $ whenever possible) and tomorrow (she'd get the $30 being a teacher for a whole day would get) while I was at my meeting.  Um...she's not coming in.... and there's no sub for her (or TWO of Susan's people, so Susan can't help with coverage).  Which means I have to go pull Sandy AGAIN and then cover for her at lunch AGAIN which screws Paula and Dot AGAIN .... UGH.

Are we EVER going to have a 'normal' day?  The ONLY positive right now is...well, there are a few.  I like to make myself think about the positives rather than bitching (ignore above?).  One, I feel fine.  I'M not going to be absent (knocks on wood), so at least I can be there for my staff.  Two, the meeting this morning shouldn't be too long, so in theory, I'll be out in time to maybe help facilitate Dot or Paula taking a lunch a bit early.  We'll have to play with this.  Three, I have an amazing staff, which means that amazing things will happen.

Let's hope that tomorrow Kathleen is in, because I'm supposed to provide coverage for TWO people, myself and Kathie, and.... oh lord, talk about things NOT working. 

I think I've written about Mark on here before; I know, I know, 'tis my blog about teaching, but he works at my school, so this makes it school-related, does it not?  I am very nervous (not nervous, I guess, but full of nerves/nervous energy) and regret eating breakfast this morning.

To backtrack, I met him when I was setting up over the summer.  He, and Dylan and Milly were all really cool and helpful custodians while I was moving in, and I won them over (believe it or not, they have to do a lot of crap and deal with stupid people AND their messes, so they don't love everybody).  Dylan was just a summer helper, but Mark and Milly are both young and fun, so after school they used to come visit me while they were coming around to empty trashes/vacuum, and we'd chill.  Yay, two new friends.

Or so I thought. I stay at work late, sometimes until 8:30.  Most nights, Mark usually comes in to visit and stays for a while; sometimes a half hour, sometimes an hour.  NOT helpful to getting work done, but I don't know many people around here, so all social connections are welcome.  He's a cool guy; he's fun to talk to, funny, and he's nice.  A cool new friend, right?

Well, then the rumors started floating around, apparently.  To my knowledge, only one other teacher is here past 6, and she's pretty far out there, so I don't know how they originated, but apparently, most of the building was aflutter a few weeks ago that Emily and Mark were dating/hooking up/etc.  Let me tell you right now that this was not the case.  In fact, Mark and I even joked about it.  We first talked about how everyone thinks he and Milly do it regularly on peoples' desks because he's a guy and she's a girl and they're here until 11 usually alone, and then we were kidding around that 'oh, we're talking to each other - we must be on a date'.  We also kidded around that now the way they divide the building, he's across the school and Milly's on my side, so I talk to her and hey, that must mean the two of US are getting it on (BOY do I miss middle school!).

So this whole time, I was feeling a little weird about the situation, because 1) I SUCK when it comes to boys and 'liking' people, and 2) I didn't want a reputation at my new school of being that girl (since I am not that girl).  To me, it was completely platonic. I thought he was a good guy, nothing wrong with him, but I still wasn't attracted to my friend Mark; that's what I was considering him.  And that's how it felt, except for a few times.  He made a few comments that I DIDN'T think were things just-friends would say, such as "cute girl like you" or "I always have time for you".  I never really responded to them, and I guess I should have thought more of them than I did, but I'm stupid.

So one of the days this past week, he told me that his mom was going to be watching his kids on Saturday (did I not mention that?  It wouldn't be a real factor for liking him or not, but it is a truth about him) and would I maybe want to hang out.  I said maybe.  But after the long work week, I just wanted to head home to my parents' house and get into pajamas and sleep and pet my cat.  So on Friday after TWO long meetings, I was very sleepy and drained and told him that I was going home because I had plans to hike with my mom on Saturday (Truth) and then I was going to go dog-sit for my mom's friend for some money (true in the past, but a definite FALSEHOOD for this weekend).  I don't know why I half-lied, but I did. 

I also never turned my phone on Friday or Saturday, and just put it on before I started typing this (Sunday, about 11:10am).  He texted me with "I didn't meant to make things awkward between us.  I'm cool just being friends if you don't wanna go out" to which I responded "I left my phone in (our town) this wknd, sorry I didn't respond sooner.  Yeah, friends is cool" and he wrote back, "Ok I guess I thought, well it doesn't matter what I thought.  Friends is cool".

But now I feel like a bitch.  I didn't intend to do anything like this...I'm not even sure I did anything like this (lead him on).  I didn't think I was being flirty or... ugh.  I have SO MUCH WORK TO GET DONE RIGHT NOW, I'm at my friggin' school to get it done, and I'm just sitting here in the cold thinking about how awkward tomorrow is going to be.

Glorious.

First, like everyone else on here, I would like to take a minute to express my gratitude to the men and women who have served our country in the past, and send well wishes to all those doing so currently (our future Veterans).  I think everyone should visit www.homesforourtroops.org, an organization dedicated to building houses for veterans who have been severely wounded in the line of duty, www.welcomebackveterans.org/ and www.iraqwarveterans.org .

Here's a list of things I wanted to accomplish/accomplished on my 'day off'.

- Wake up at regular time so I could enjoy the most part of the day as possible
- Changed into my PJs last night, and left my clothes on the floor, instead of  hanging them up/placing them in the hamper as always. That was hard, but I did it
- Fixing the blankets and sheets on my bed because they were hanging down at weird angles.
- Ate lunch today (soup, a sandwich, tomatoes, a banana, popcorn... went a little overboard )
- Read about 50 pages in my book.
- Organized a few piles of junk that hav accumulated in my room.
- Did my chore for the apartment this week (w00t! I'm on floors/mopping!)
- Watched TV in the middle of the day just because I could (Full House)
- Watched a movie that Netflix shipped to me AUGUST 19TH. 
- Didn't think about my job or my students until about 20 minutes ago.

*May not seem like much, but it was DEFINITELY a mental health day.  2 of my roommates were home all day today (one is in grad school, so he only ever has to leave for class and his one class today was canceled, and the other 'works' from the house), but I didn't really talk to them either. 
Today went a lot faster than I was expecting, but it was also quite lovely.  Except for the fact that I'm noticing things don't taste right (like this Halloween chocolate I'm pretending I'm NOT eating), so I'm worried I'm getting sick, all is feeling really good.

I went over to go read with Michelle, one of my aides (so it's okay to use names ), and her student J.  I wandered away for a second to do something else, and Michelle came over and said, "J told me she gets nervous when you're near her when she's reading.  She said she forgets the words or can't read while you're there".


OUCH.

As long as she's reading, I'm okay, and there ARE going to be days I'm going to be reading with her, and she'll have to deal with those nerves (which is totally fabricated because we've read together many a time and she's enjoyed it), but ... self-esteem took a big hit right there.