Today is the last day of the quarter.  Hallelujah.  Yesterday I had 20-30 kids swarming my room after school.  All trying to turn in late work, make up a test or check their grade one last time.  Isn't it funny how I'm okay with my own procrastination but despise how much work it creates for me when my students do?  Skyward (our online grading system) was creeping along, making it tough to access and input grades.  As the line to my desk grew unbearably long, a student marched right up to my desk, passing by all the others and handed me her cell phone.  "My mom wants to talk to you!"  So I answered the phone and Mom proceeded to chew me out because I was unfairly grading her daughter.  "That is just unacceptable," she screamed.  "Wow lady, calm down," I thought, "how interesting that all of the sudden the day before the quarter ends she has a problem with her daughter's grade even though it's been a C+ or lower for the ENTIRE QUARTER."  Well, the silliest part of the whole situation was how the entire roomful of students (plus a mother/daughter combo waiting to talk to me about her grade) heard this wretched woman yelling at me on the top of her lungs over the cell phone.  I prayed a lot after that incident that I could just keep my cool and make it successfully though the rest of my day and night since I had my overwhelming 4 hour ESL endorsement class still to endure.


Anyways, I'm not gonna lie, October was rough this year. Teaching middle school is crazy hard. Today was the best day of the month because I allowed myself to laugh and release some stress. We blasted that song by Taio Cruz (about thowin' your hands up in the air sometimes) and I got all 32 students in 5th period to dance around the room in a conga line with me. Sayin' a-yo, gotta let go.