Reading today: catalogues in the mail
Music today: radio
TV today: "I Love the '90s" from 9-11pm on VH1
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Yes, although it is mid-July and a wonderful summer day, it is time I begin to plan for back to school. Usually I will have a dream, which is my internal cue to start thinking, planning, and organizing. That dream occurred last night. To set it up, you must understand that I am teaching in 2 different rooms this year; and the first day of school is a half day with 20 min. in each class.

In my dream I was loading my cart and getting ready to go to my first class when my principal approached with a new schedule. Instead of 2 classes of 7th grade SS, I was teaching 1 8th grade SS and 1 Science! The feeling of panic in my dream was palpable. So I figured I could tread water the first day and went to my first class. That went well - in my dream I actually went through the whole shpiel (?) I would do on the first day. But then for some reason I waited for the next class in the same room. They all came in, and another teacher came in and started talking about the class. I thought to myself, "I must be coteaching." Then the asst. principal came in and asked why I wasn't in my classroom. I had forgotten I had to switch classrooms! I grabbed my cart and went running through the halls to the other classroom. Just as I arrived, the bell rang to dismiss class. I made them stay and did my shpiel again, and the class kept getting angrier and out of control. And in my brain a thought went, "this is how your whole year is going to be." And then I woke up.

I realized my internal teacher was saying, "it's time. Gather your stuff, start going over what you're going to teach, and get your files in order."

Since I now have to prepare a little one for me to go back to school, I turned in all his paperwork to daycare today and asked all my questions. Roman's first day will be August 5th for half day. The following week I have a whole-day workshop for 5 days, so he'll have to go full time. Then he switches back to part time, and then he'll be in the swing of things when I finally do go back to work. So although it's July... yes, we teachers start to prepare for school early. I know I'm not the only one - even a colleague, teaching his 30th year this year, says he starts pulling stuff out the last week of July and gets himself mentally prepared. So no, public, teachers DON'T get the summers off. Our brains won't let us.