Happy New Year

A friend of mine said this is how we should go back to school (as teachers). Happy New Year! 

This year, I feel like the transition has been hard. Today was our first day back, and there will be students in my room on Wednesday. It's early (for NY), and not every district is going back before Labor Day. These two days without kids are supposed to be "get your room and materials ready" days, but they are almost always a marathon of meetings. My room is currently evidence of the fractured time, because there are piles on literally every desk. And there are a lot of desks -- I have relatively large special classes (self-contained) this year, so I had to collect tables because I didn't have enough. 

I don't feel ready at all. I know I will be, as ready as I'm gonna be, by the time the kids walk through my door. Or I'll be an amazing actress and pretend I've got it all together. Either option is honestly fine. 

I enjoyed that I truly did NOTHING school-related in July. It made July like every day was Saturday (a day I reserve for no school work during the year). But then, August felt like Sunday. And it went FAST. I had grand plans. I executed...some of them. I brought stuff home today, but then decided to pick up Five Guys on the way home and chill out. I have one thing I HAVE to do, but I also wanted some downtime. 

It was discouraging to see at the faculty meeting that summer slides (yep, they still do that) were very family-kid centered, and many people without kids or partners did not participate. I did, because I enjoy a ridiculous photo, a slide WITHOUT children (now the vast majority are high school and college), and some ordinary reading-at-home photos. But this year, they decided to have people explain their slides. I might have said, "Oh no no no" really loudly. I refused, because I had captions and IS THIS REALLY NECESSARY IN LIFE? but everyone else did it and it took a really long time. People who had a rough summer were MISERABLE. People who had a meh summer were MISERABLE. And, because I didn't explain my slide and said "read the captions" in the nicest possible way, they gave it about 10 seconds or less airtime. Boooo. Here it is: 

I added my reading stats because that's how I personally rate a summer. And I have to have flower pictures. And the one time we got the fire pit out. 

Maybe living in a cycle that restarts each year is great in that we get a new year every year. Maybe having that (ever shorter) summer break makes it harder to restart, though. I am looking forward to this year. I just have to pump myself up a bit for the two days with kids. I can do it for them. For a zillion meetings? Not as necessary. :) Maybe I'll feel more ready and myself next week.