Landlord Love

Our new landlord, SuperLesbian, closes on the house on September 9. We had a meeting with her tonight, complete with Pinot Grigio and hor's devours, and she explained to us everything that's happening. I'm not sure how the meeting could have gone better. Not only will we be getting new windows, a new paint job, a washer and drier, and a new stove, we're also not having a rent increase. I'm also going to get a free live-in tutorial of how to fix up a house.

As worried as I was about a month ago, I've got to admit (again), that everything worked out for the best and that this seems like it was always supposed to be the plan.

Still living the charmed life and not caring that the other shoe might someday drop.

In regards to teaching, the big thing that I'm feeling this week is exhaustion. Most of my colleagues are feeling the same thing; it's like we're not in teaching shape yet. It takes a lot physically and mentally to stand in front of a group of kids for hours on end. I'm finding this exacerbated by floating from classroom to classroom. I feel funny about sitting at other teachers' desks, so I don't sit for four hours in a row in the morning, then for another couple hours in the afternoon, finally relenting for my planning period. I'm sure this, combined with increased cardio workouts in the morning, is contributing to the soreness in my legs and back.

In addition, the first days of school are so anticlimactic. I'm so excited about them for so long, and then I realize that the first couple of days are days filled with a lot of teacher-centered instruction. In other words, the sound of my voice. Droning on and on. I'm bored to death listening to myself after the fifth or so time, so I can just imagine what the kids feel. You've got to do it, you've got to go over the syllabus and the course expectations, but it's not that fun. It was nice today to finally get to some real content, as the kids got into groups to pull out some characterization methods used in A Lesson Before Dying.

Because of my exhaustion, I surrendered and took a nap yesterday when I got home, sleeping between 6pm and 7pm. Big mistake. Because of that stupid nap, I couldn't fall asleep until 2am, and when the alarm clock went off at 5am, I just reset it for 7:15. That means I missed the morning gym trip, which was a bummer. I've felt great after doing them on Monday and Tuesday and was disappointed to miss today's. I've made it my goal this year to go to the gym in the morning 170 out of the 180 days of this school year, giving myself ten sleep-in days. This was one of them. I did go in the afternoon but I'm not letting myself off the hook.