Semester Madness Rolls In...

I'm still coming to grips with my complete shock over a 5 page paper I have due this Thursday! What?!? Didn't I just move back here? Didn't classes just begin a few days ago? A five page paper due already?!? What?!?!? I'm still in complete disbelief as you can tell, and I'm a bit afraid that I will only come to accept the true beginning of the semester deluge at like uhmm 2 a.m. the very day the paper's due. That would leave me 8 hours to write it, which I suppose isn't bad! Lol.

When it rains it pours, though. I think that's one trend I've noticed in my last few years of blogging. I'm still uncertain about my courses, and now it's mostly just an administrative hold-up. Time isn't waiting for me though, classes marched forward and the work started piling on despite the fact that I don't even feel settled in and ready to begin. I have about 500 pages of reading to get through by week's end (uhm, not gonna happen), the paper, a few other small writing assignments, and work.

Speaking of work. I'm heading into my third year tutoring kids after school and on Sunday mornings. I had a fabulous group of kids for the past two years, and when I was hating my life here on the hill, working with those kids was the one thing I could say I enjoyed about this place. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. The principal decided to sever my connection with that group of kids and stick me with the 7th graders this year.

Does anyone remember 7th grade? I do, it wasn't all that long ago for me, and I remember hating it. Not ironically, so many of my bad memories of kids and the way they behave at that age were validated for me today at my first day back at work tutoring. There are a few gems in the class, but the vast majority are just fast-taking, antsy, and fresh. They try to throw me off topic in the middle of my discussion and when I'm too boring they start their own conversations on the side. They throw stuff across the room in the middle of class, and oh lordy. It might be a long year with them. Do I even need to tell you how impossible it was to convey the notion of "respect" to them as we went over the class rules? Ugh.

All righty, I better get to bed before I start whining about how I don't get enough sleep either, LOL. But before I do that, I need to give a warm shout-out to one of my most loyal blog-readers: Kristin! She's trekking her way across the globe in these very days. I hope you have a great semester in Russia! Stay warm and keep us posted!