Swamped

Not with water this time, thank goodness. But I sat through my first day of mind-numbing teacher's meetings and apparently I'm supposed to invent and turn in twelve (12) extra lesson plans by Friday. Something about their Gifted & Talented accomodations... anyway, thankfully I have a sample textbook which has several GT lesson ideas which I can springboard from, but the district has a format they want the lessons in, so I'm going to be working my butt off here at the house to get these done. Why can't I do them in my classroom while I'm at school? Because I don't have a computer on my desk. Nothing's set up in my room.

I know that the first few weeks of school are always chaotic, so I'm not complaining. Really. But I did want my regular readers (all six of you) to know that I'M NOT DEAD YET and that I'm just really, really busy.

And clueless, for the most part.

The combination of these two is putting my stress hormones into overload; I can usually tell when things are getting tight because I get little outbreaks of dyshidrotic eczema on my index fingers. This week ALL my fingers have broken out in the telltale itchy blisters. YUCK! It's embarrassing to sit in the meetings picking at my fingers, but they're so itchy I can hardly help it. I'll slather them in anti-itch cream tomorrow and see if that helps.

So far, though, I have to say that this district is WAY friendlier than the last one was. School secretaries, administrators, they've all been very nice. I hope it bodes well for the future.