Monday, November 06, 2006

HM Is A Big Whiny Baby!

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is not a happy camper. Her parade has been
rained on today. One bad apple spoiled her whole bunch, and then
somebody upset her applecart. She can't see the forest for the trees.
She can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps a vision exam
is in order.

I am getting tired of being a day late (but not a dollar short, by cracky,
because I have a gambling system that works!) I can't get caught up
with my 6 preparations per day. One of them is not too bad, because
it is mostly tutoring. But the others are a constant drain on my energy.
One 50-minute prep time per day is not enough. Even adding the
22-minute lunch time does not help. I still have 25 classes a week to
prepare. Oh, I don't mean plan. I can get that done in 30 minutes
each week. I KNOW what I'm going to do, it's just finding materials
that sucks the energy out of me. I don't have textbooks for my classes.
So I am constantly scrounging from several resources per class to
come up with what I need. If I can't find one on the internet, or in
my resource books, I create one. For each class. 25 times per week.
That's five per day. Try it some time. Waaaa, waaaa! Hillbilly Mom
is a big whiny baby! But she achieves the incredible each day, by
cracky! HM pulls through in the zero hour.

Take this morning, for instance. I had to type up a worksheet 1st hour
to use 3rd hour. And get it printed or copied. I had no time to chat
with Mabel in the hall. It helped that my class was doing the weekly
writing prompt, and only one had questions about why petroleum is
not a crystalline solid (it's a liquid, duh, and its molecules are not
arranged in an ordered crystal pattern), and what the two most
abundant elements on Earth are (oxygen and silica), and what very
common compounds do they make when combined (silicates).

I managed to get all the writing prompt thingies graded while my 2nd
hour did the writings and took a quiz (got it graded too), with time to
discuss the worksheet for 30 minutes with 3rd hour. They have a lot
of trouble with root/prefix thingies, like circum means 'around' (ex.
circumference) and man refers to 'hand' (ex. manipulate). We did
23 of them today, with 22 more to follow tomorrow. It's already done,
thank you very much, because I made the decision to give my young
Math 7 kids board work for their Box & Whisker Plots instead of
creating a worksheet, and the Math 8 had a test, and I got all the
grades entered on my lunch time, so all I had to do on my prep time
was write on the board and type up those prefixes. Oh, then the
Lang 7 kids had a writing prompt, and I dashed out of Lower
Basementia to speed back to a faculty meeting at the other building.

I will say that my day flies by, once I get there. Tonight I need to
come up with a Solving One- & Two-Step Equations practice
sheet for Math 9. I think I have one that I've used already for Math 8,
which can be easily adapted. Oh and some more Whisker stuff, which
can be done tomorrow just before class. I don't really like to bring
work home, but I've got to fill out work for some kids in the after-
school mandatory tutoring group, and some ISS work. There won't
be time in the morning. Oh, and we have all new writing assignments
to create for this quarter, and I have duty after school tomorrow,
which eats into the hour I like to stay to finish up, and then I have
to go vote, so my schedule is pretty much booked for the next few
days, what with Wednesday being backwards day due to an early
out, and me having to be in two buildings at one time, which even
The Magnificent Mrs. Hillbilly Mom can't do, so thank the Gummi
Mary that a fellow traveler volunteered to take my students for
thirty minutes so I can cover my class in the other building.

Whew! Did you know the school year is almost over?

7 comments:

Cazzie!!! said...

Wow, there4 vertainly is no rest for the whicked..damnation to the midwife who said that to me when I was in labor with Tomas 9 years ago!! I shall never forgive her!!!
Anyhow, I reckon teachers and us nurses are hard done by in the time department..no time to do much of anything, anything relaxing anyhow that is! Yes, the day does go particularly fast when we are at work doesn't it? Luckily for our students/patients they have got us.
Now, once I am better from these anti biotics I am on I am going to invest in a bottle of red wine. I believe it has health benefits that I need..care to go down the same path HBM?
Yayy for the school year almost ending here. My Sarah begins school this next Febuary, three down and one to go then :)

Redneck Diva said...

Good grief!! I'm exhausted just reading that, Hillbilly Mom! I don't know how you teachers do it! I'd be in the fetal position in the corner, mumblinb incoherently. Wait. I do that pretty much every day anyway...nevermind.

Stacie said...

I've been out a while, glad to catch up. I'm so glad I'm not a teacher. My daughter has a 2nd quarter science project to do this week that has me scratching my head. She must complete two of these three: #1 Make a set of 11 flash cards showing the different stages of meiosis. #2 Write a newspaper article to announce a new, genetically engineered plant. #3 Write a story about how advances in genetics may affedt your life in the next ten years.

Oh, I can already see how fun this is going to be.

Mommy Needs a Xanax said...

That made my head hurt, so I stopped reading after about 4 paragraphs, but I can relate. Last year I had 30 classes per week, and flying desks to dodge along the way. I came to class with a real plan about 60% of the time, and quickly learned how to pull something productive out of my arse the other 40%.

Thanksgiving break will be here soon, and then Christmas, and you can work yourself to death dealing with family members instead of students.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Cazzie,
Time does fly at work. I hope you get over your bug. I never was much of a winer, and gave up the demon rum OH SO MANY years ago. After the Coors Light costume years.


Diva,
There is the difference in you and me. I KNOW that I can not curl up in a corner and mumble, because the students would take over. That may be a whole post in itself. You have the most scathingly brilliant ideas, Dear Diva.


Stacie,
Eeewww! Those flash cards are the one I would leave out. I even taught that stuff, and I still hate it. The others I could get creative with.


Miss Ann,
My head be hurtin' too, gal!

I do have to pull one out occasionally. I call it "Journal Writing" and hope the kids don't catch on that I'm using it as quiet time to catch up.

You're right about Thanksgiving and Christmas time.

The school year is almost over, you know!

Queen Of Cheese said...

MrCoach whines about class preps too but considering he actually has a classroom to whine in this year makes it all better I guess. Last year he just did PE and athletics with 2 classes, this year he has 4 different preps. Oh the horror! Maybe you should EXPECT MrHBM to do them for you and complain when he does them wrong.....

Hillbilly Mom said...

Mrs.
That's a good idea. I KNOW he would do it wrong. And he might hit someone, too, which would pretty much take the heat off me for ANYTHING I have done wrong...like parking in the visitor spot last week when all the other spaces were full.