Stop the insanity!

I've been so overwhelmed since school started, I haven't had time to post. Suffice it to say that right now, I'm just getting through the day at my school. Some of my kids are great, but a few are harder to handle. I have one autistic kid who is sweet and adorable but needs to have a para, one kid with a real bad attitude who should have been retained in first grade, one kid who refuses to get the meaning of "stay in your seat and stop talking", one kid who cannot even read at a kindergarten level (remember, I teach second grade), one kid who thinks she's the teacher. . . you get the idea.

My name is misspelled two different ways in two different places in the building--once at the front by the office where all the teachers are listed, and once on my mailbox in the teacher's lounge. I found out that I have to serve on at least two committees in my building. Our staff meetings are before school at 8 AM, which means I will have to ask my husband to come home from work early to take my girls to school, or I will have to make some other arrangements for them. I had less than a week's notice about our open house Thursday evening. Most of the teachers I work with seem nice, but nobody is overly friendly. I only have 50 minutes of plan time each day, although I've never had less than an hour at any of the schools I've been in before. Our duty day runs from 8:55 to 4:25, but most days I am still waiting for some of my students' buses to arrive at 4:25, so by the time I wrap everything up, I don't get out of the building much before 5 PM.

The district still hasn't given me a computer username or district e-mail address yet. They finally set up my voicemail on Thursday. They gave out misinformation on the health insurance plan to all the new employees, so I had to scramble to get enrolled on Friday.

Ugh. . . this has turned into a depressing post. Let's change the subject!

The girls are loving kindergarten! I love to come home and hear their stories about what they did that day. It was so hard to let them go those first few days, but I think they're going to have a great year. I really like their teacher; I can tell she has a lot of experience teaching kindergarten, and she really seems to enjoy doing it.

I start my next round of graduate courses tomorrow, so the craziness will continue. I hope your school year has gotten off to a smooth start, whether you are a parent, teacher, or student.