Storms

Sorry for the prolonged silence. I thought I would get right back into the swing of things when I got in from Atlanta, but it’s been nuts around here (as usual), and it’s been dreadfully hot out — triple digits every day since I got home. It’s storming now, so hopefully things will cool off. 

My big goal for this week is to get my first-quarter lesson plans done. I have a million ideas, but my office is so hopelessly cluttered that it’s almost impossible for me to focus a thought. I feel as if my summer just started this week, and I’m already looking down the barrel of another school year. I get a little panicky every time the radio runs that spot about back-to-school immunization clinics. I’m not ready to go back to school yet. I haven’t done ANY of the things I’d hoped to do for my classroom this summer. 

I know I’m putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself — if I’ve revamped my syllabus and put together a week’s worth of lesson plans by the time school starts, I’ll be just fine — but I want my whole semester mapped out and tucked neatly into a binder before the kids come in. I feel better when I know exactly what I mean to accomplish, even if the realities of the classroom force me to throw out the whole lesson and start from scratch 30 seconds after the bell rings.

Maybe I’ll feel better once I’ve had a chance to meet our new principal. He should be arriving soon. I hope he’s as much fun as Zaphod, but I think I may be asking for the moon there. I’m not sure Robin Williams is as much fun as Zaphod.

I’ll tell you who is as much fun as Zaphod: Walter. Three pounds of sheer comic genius, that one. His latest performances involve chasing his tail (he caught it yesterday and rolled right off the bed while trying to figure out what to do with it) and doing this weird Snoopy-as-the-World-War-I-Flying-Ace routine in which he zigzags across the bed, stopping periodically to crouch and stare at some invisible target. He’s obviously carrying out some sort of covert operation, but I can’t figure out what it is. If he told me, he’d probably have to kill me….

Emily