Conferences

Yesterday we had spring parent/teacher conferences.  They were, as usual, s-l-o-o-o-w.  In six and a half hours, I had exactly 12 parents.  I brought the new laptop with me and used it as an MP3 player while I blasted through a pile of essays that I hadn't been able to finish.  Once those were done, I switched to DVD mode and watched DOCTOR WHO.

I rather suspect that conferences are going to become less and less popular an event.  At the school system where I teach, parents can log into the school system and see the teachers' gradebooks (for their child's marks only).  They can see up-to-the-minute grades and contact the teacher by phone or e-mail if they see a problem.  This, in turn, reduces the need for a conference.  I wonder if eventually conferences will be reduced to once a year, and that mostly so parents can come in to meet the teacher rather than confer.

Anyway, I got home exhausted at 9:15 and had to spend considerable time unwinding before I could go to bed and reasonably expect to fall asleep. Despite the slowness of the evening, it was very tiring.  I was at school for almost fourteen hours.  The older I get, the harder it becomes to handle this.

The Day After Conferences

Today I woke up still physically and emotionally tired, and I still had to teach all day.  In the good old days, we had the day after conferences off as a comp day, but recently the district switched to all buildings having the same comp day in order to save money with busing.  It's nice having a four-day weekend over Memorial Day, but it's horrible the day after conferences.

 

I taught all my classes all day.  I could have thrown videos in, but I'm enough of a perfectionist that I can't bring myself to do that unless conditions are truly extreme.  At lunchtime, I did go out.  My prep period falls during the lunch period, so I get ninety minutes for lunch if I want it, and I had to get away from the damn school building.  I drove to a little restaurant a ways away and had a hot lunch.  Felt a little better and returned for the second half of the day, though by seventh hour, I was exhausted again.

 

I fled the building the moment the final bell rang and arrived home feeling tired, annoyed, and anti-social.  Ten will get you five that tomorrow the absentee rate among staff will be high.  I ain't subbing on my prep period if they fall short of subs, I can tell you that.

Evening After Conferences

I slept for a while this afternoon, then ate supper, then watched some pirated TORCHWOOD on-line while I baked some stuff in the kitchen to try and improve my mood.  It sort-of worked.

 

At least there are cookies now.