Exhaustion.

I am so incredibly worn out. I thought I'd take an hour long nap around 4 today - I woke up at 8 PM, ate dinner, and now I can barely keep my eyes open. I don't even know WHY I'm this tired - I just know I can't function and I can barely get through my lessons and it's KILLING me. I can't have a career like this - if this is what teaching is, then I will honestly go get my masters and/or doctorates and teach at the collegiate level. Because I refuse to half-*** teaching.

I worked with a substitute today. We got to talking, and she told me that she taught for over 20 years (high school english), won several teaching awards, had students go on to win prestigious awards in writing, and has her masters in education. No one will hire her because the state requires that she be paid at a higher level for having her masters. She has no job except substitute teaching. Obviously I only spent a day with her, but she appeared to be a very intelligent, dedicated, passionate individual. What the heck is wrong with society???? No wonder a lot of teachers are fools - all the intelligent ones are "too expensive" to hire. And I ask...why SHOULDN'T teachers be paid well? We're already severely underpaid when compared to other professions...why is America dooming itself? Why should we sacrifice ourselves to bad pay when we already give our careers our all?

In other news, I felt like I had a 'moment' in one of my classes today. Most of my lessons were crap (big surprise), but I was working with some students on a garageband project in one class. They had already turned in a short composition project and were working on their second to hand in, which is required to be in a different style from the first. I was listening to several students' work before they turned it in to be graded, and realized that all the students were using heavy synths and drum kits which mirrored their previous work. Finally, I went around opening new files and giving students one loop to work with. I said, "show me what you can do with this funky bass line" or whatever...by the end of class, I had a football player creating this AWESOME mellow piano rock piece, and another kid asking to stay during his lunch period to finish writing his funk piece. I asked them if they LIKED what they were writing - they said they really did, they just didn't know how to write something in a different genre than techno before. Hopefully it made an impact.

I also stayed after school to work with a student who's been having trouble in theory (and saying she's having trouble is a huge understatement). I think we made some headway, and I offered to help her review her homework every day after school. I hope that works too.

Maybe today wasn't SO bad - I had a breakthrough in my 7th grade general music too. Not only do I feel a lot more comfortable with that age group, but I FINALLY figured out a way to get this one student to settle down. He's been a problem since the first week of class, and he is getting horrible grades because of it. Yesterday I came to the conclusion that all he wants is attention...and that's why putting him in the front by me doesn't work - everyone in the class sees him there and it gives him more fuel to act up. He's now sitting in the back row with one quiet student he can't corrupt, and he was actively participating in class. Hopefully this continues and his grades come up.

Oh! Then my co-op asked me if I'd be OK to run guard rehearsal tomorrow since his wife won't be able to make it. FINALLY. Last week he COMPLETELY blew me off and it crushed me...cross your fingers for me that I can prove myself tomorrow night. I guess there were a few really good moments today that I forgot about because of the bad ones...

I also found out I was nominated for something. It's really nothing, but I do kinda feel bad about it. I sit in my seminar class EMBARRASSED because I know my lessons aren't special and I don't feel like I'm making an impact, and that's all I ever wanted to do. I don't feel like I deserve any recognition - all I've ever done was dabble in things that were fun and interesting to me...why should I be recognized for that? Maybe all the things I've ever done were out of self-interest to ME...that's not worth any recognition.

Here's hoping tomorrow goes well. On the bright side, I'm going home on Saturday to watch my cat and dog for the weekend. I'm planning on ordering a pizza, relaxing, and taking my sweet time to finish my lesson plans. And next week's a four day week (in-service)!!!! woot!!!