I'm going to Boston this weekend to take three tests. This is more stress that I think I can handle. I also have three class sets of essays to grade and I can't do it. I think there's a mental block that has to do with this trip. Hopefully I'll get another half class done tomorrow, but it's not looking good, since book reports are due. The book reports will be graded by tomorrow when I leave school, but the essays? Probably not.
The stress that I have is about traveling. I don't like to leave my classes because I have to prepare a lesson for someone else to give and then I worry about how the little darlings are behaving for a substitute. I wish I didn't think about all these things, but I do. Add to all that, I don't fly well. If I flew more I'd need to buy stock in the Dramamine Corporation. I can't sleep in any moving vehicle, which is horrible, and I have a hard time focusing on anything. If I could focus, those essays would be going with me and would get done.
Once I get to Boston I need a shuttle to take me to the hotel I had to book before I knew where my test would be, so it is near the airport and the test is, well, not. The three hour time difference will come into play when I will need to go to bed early, for those tests. I'll need to leave the hotel at 7 am (4am pacific standard time) and take a cab for the first time in my life. And there is a hockey game on that night. So, I'll stay up watching it and then get no sleep and be taken to some random middle school to take three tests; one proving that I'm literate, one proving that I can choose appropriate main ideas after reading passages and one that proves that I am an English teacher. I don't know if there will be food places near-by, so I will also have to pack a granola bar or something. After the test I'll need to go back to the hotel and go to bed for the early flight I have to take back to LA. And there is another hockey game on, which I'll want to see.
So there will be a weekend of no sleep and too much stress and then I have to go back and teach on Monday. Those poor little darlings. They'll never know what hit them, especially if they are bad for the substitute. I shouldn't care about that, but I do. I like having a reputation for under control classes. That might be gone soon.
Here's to my break down!
