Judging by the fact that I got home from the school at about 8:15 PM tonight (almost six HOURS after the dismissal bell rang), you are not going to get a Tuesday Tell-ALL today.
However, I will tell you 3 things:
1. I finally finished grading the last of my students’ book projects. For the assignment, they had to decorate a container on the outside to represent the theme of the science fiction book they’d read. Apparently, I should have been more specific about the container being clean, hygienic, and relatively odor- and sticky-free. You might be wondering what kind of project spurred on the necessity of such a footnote. Well friends, I had a student submit a well-used gym shoe (that REEKED) as the container for his book project. AND he had shoved the papers for the project all the way back into the toe, so I had to reach my hand into the stench to fish all of them out, one by one. And if that wasn’t enough, I had another (male) student who clearly had finished his project last-minute right after lunch. After draining his purple Powerade, he hastily scribbled some general notes on some note paper and shoved them inside the bottle, WITHOUT EVEN BOTHERING TO RINSE IT OUT. So guess what I get? Sticky purple slime-paper adhering to my fingers as I squeamishly try and unravel the wet mass in order to grade it.
I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried, people.
2. One of my brightest students today informed me of the following, “Mrs. Meidell, you’re the nicest teacher out of all the Language Arts teachers. But even though Mrs. [other 7th grade LA teacher’s name] is the meanest, she’s also the best.
I hate to admit it, but that really stung. What can I say? I feel like I’ve been kind of running on empty for the past month, so I seem to be taking things pretty personally lately. It didn’t help that today was one of those days where you come home and cry your eyes out until they’re puffy and raccoonish and watery snot is dribbling down to your collar while your husband is quietly nodding his head and holding you.
3. God’s tender mercies are everywhere. After almost 6 hours of straight grading today after school, I was feeling overwhelmed and empty, empty, empty. Then, right before I left, I had the feeling that I should check my email, and what did I find? The sweetest letter from one of my students, thanking me for everything I’d taught her over the course of this whole year and how every time she read certain scriptures on charity, she thought of me and the example I was for her.
Thanks to her, I think I’ll get through this week. (It also helped that she left a P.S. at the bottom of the letter that explained that she’d gotten the scriptures off of lds.org, but that she hoped I wouldn’t mind that she didn’t fully cite them on a works cited page. She does my old teacher heart proud!)
Two more days.
I can do this.
I hope.
