Just shoot me...

...with a tranquilizer that will allow me to sleep for a solid week. Today has been a doozey of a teaching day, and I welcome a forced time out. Why was today such a doozey, you ask? The answer is simple: I taught non-stop from 10am until 8:30pm. You read that correctly -- a 10.5-hour self-induced pedagogy marathon that, if it weren't for the grace of God and my adult female student making Masboosa to share with my last class of the day, I would have died.

For this 8-week teaching block, I'm doing a joined portfolio piloting and textbook writing project that gives me 6 hours' release time, but a whole lot of administrative liaising craziness. Although my teaching load is 14 contact hours each week this block, I have two Research Presentation sections, which means I'm helping 40 students plug through doing a research-oriented academic presentation for the first time, and I have to do a 10- to 15-minute meeting with each student this week. To add gluttony to this workload, I was recruited to pick up a Level One English Works! ESP evening course that services Ministry of Education employees looking to learn English. This class meets from 5pm-8:30pm on Sat-Tues, but I have them Sundays and Tuesday evenings. Given all this, my Tuesdays shape up to look like this:

10am-12pm: Research Presentation (Level 5 Science)
12pm-1pm: Speaking/Listening (Level 5 Science)
1pm-2pm: lesson prep inside the classroom since there's no time to go back to my office
2pm-4pm: Research Presentation (Level 5 Science)
4pm-4.30pm: Go back to my office, switch out my materials bags, check work e-mail, and, hopefully, find time to hit up the ladies' room
5pm-8.30pm: Speaking/Listening (Level 1 MoE adults' class)

This morning's first Research Presentation section was not good. At the end of class, I shamed them by telling them that I'm disappointed in a third of the class and that I am only going to help the students that are seeking help.

Things picked up with my favorite section at 12pm, but then I had to plug through a torturous presentation meeting with a student who has little to no motivation to do research on Detroit and the Ford Motor Company -- a topic that he chose, not me.

Students for my second Research Presentation section worked a lot better than the morning group, but the neediness of the boys and the fact that the computer monitor was out of commission and I had to crane my neck to use the projection screen to navigate things put me on the verge of wanting to strangle something.

Apparently, the visit of Maximilian von Holland forced the main highway to be temporarily shut down this evening, which made half of the class sporadically late for the MoE class. These students are grown adults, in their 40s and 50s, but they are all education administrators, which means that they are worse than regular students at times when it comes to listening in class and following directions. My patience was stretched to the limit with one individual, but thankfully the rest of the class is perceptive enough to understand that this guy acts out in class because he's the weakest. At 8:45pm, I was able to enjoy being completely alone in my car, without anyone asking me questions or whispering/shouting "Teacher! Teacher!" I didn't think I'd get to this point so soon, but I did reach the point that a colleague shared with me from last semester's evening courses: "There are evenings when you get to your car, and you just say to yourself, 'That's 36 OR in my bank account.'"

When I got home, my back was really tight from standing and moving on my feet for so long. Whoever said that teaching doesn't kill, should try teaching in classrooms with firm tile and little cushioning. I feel like an old woman this evening.

The silver lining to this all is that when I checked my bank account balance online to see if the rumor of a 3000 OR bonus from His Majesty was true, the bonus was there. With generous money like that, I can afford a massage to take out the kinks of these marathon Tuesdays. Only two more weeks to go with this schedule. Woo-hoo!