This is the suckiest week ever!

[AZSpeechCoach]

Last weekend, I was at the ASU Speech and Debate tournament. Imagine 2000 kids and coaches from across the country on one college campus for a weekend of competition. I was asked to help run the computer tabulation for the Individual events portion. I was running a 2 computer network responsible for over 1100 entries in 10 different events. To facilitate this, I needed to run all over campus to make sure that the various parts of the tournament were running smoothly, as well as occasionally see that my students weren't setting fire to themselves or the campus. The computers avoided crashing until I tried to sort the 700 students to find the Individual tournament Champion. Then it went down and nearly took the whole tournament with it. Upshot was, I didn't get home until 12:30 AM Sunday, completely spent, and I'm still not all the way back to normal. Being a tabulation coordinator is almost as exhausting as actually competing in the tournament.

Today, I get back to my classroom, and begin my teaching week. I get an e-mail from my department chair saying that we will be out of the classroom all day tomorrow for a "computer training" from 8:00-3:30. This means I have to scramble for sub plans, and another day of class time is wasted. I have faith in my department chair, but this sounds like another time-suck that will be mandated without any thought about how it will affect my classroom or the learning of my students. Sort of like the mandatory teacher websites that would take 2 hours a week to maintain according to district policy. Of course, I'm supposed to be at a Speech Committee meeting on Thursday and another tournament on Friday, so today winds up being the only day I will see my students this week. :mad:

In addition to that, my wife has had a toothache, and the upshot is that she needs to have her wisdom teeth extracted. The only time they can do it in the near future is Friday at 2:30, when I'm scheduled to be at the tournament. One of our coaches is taking this weekend off, and the third is not scheduled to be there until Saturday. This will require a huge amount of scrambling. I need to be there for Mrs. SpeechCoach. She needs a ride home and a spongebath. :(

And, capping off a great week, I just learned today that our Drama teacher has flaked out on us and is sticking me with the State 1-Act play. We need the points from the 1-Act to finish in the top three at our state tournament this year. To not have one would kill us. I am the only other teacher at the school who has the ability to direct a one-act. The killer is that the play festival occurs three days after we come back from the Harvard Tournament over Presidents' Day weekend. I have essentially 4 weeks to start from scratch. :mad:

Is it wrong for me to want to sit in the corner and cry right about now?

[Maple Leafs]

(Walks over and gently hugs AZSpeechCoach)

[Eaglesfan27]

Last weekend, I was at the ASU Speech and Debate tournament. Imagine 2000 kids and coaches from across the country on one college campus for a weekend of competition. I was asked to help run the computer tabulation for the Individual events portion. I was running a 2 computer network responsible for over 1100 entries in 10 different events. To facilitate this, I needed to run all over campus to make sure that the various parts of the tournament were running smoothly, as well as occasionally see that my students weren't setting fire to themselves or the campus. The computers avoided crashing until I tried to sort the 700 students to find the Individual tournament Champion. Then it went down and nearly took the whole tournament with it. Upshot was, I didn't get home until 12:30 AM Sunday, completely spent, and I'm still not all the way back to normal. Being a tabulation coordinator is almost as exhausting as actually competing in the tournament.

Today, I get back to my classroom, and begin my teaching week. I get an e-mail from my department chair saying that we will be out of the classroom all day tomorrow for a "computer training" from 8:00-3:30. This means I have to scramble for sub plans, and another day of class time is wasted. I have faith in my department chair, but this sounds like another time-suck that will be mandated without any thought about how it will affect my classroom or the learning of my students. Sort of like the mandatory teacher websites that would take 2 hours a week to maintain according to district policy. Of course, I'm supposed to be at a Speech Committee meeting on Thursday and another tournament on Friday, so today winds up being the only day I will see my students this week. :mad:

In addition to that, my wife has had a toothache, and the upshot is that she needs to have her wisdom teeth extracted. The only time they can do it in the near future is Friday at 2:30, when I'm scheduled to be at the tournament. One of our coaches is taking this weekend off, and the third is not scheduled to be there until Saturday. This will require a huge amount of scrambling. I need to be there for Mrs. SpeechCoach. She needs a ride home and a spongebath. :(

And, capping off a great week, I just learned today that our Drama teacher has flaked out on us and is sticking me with the State 1-Act play. We need the points from the 1-Act to finish in the top three at our state tournament this year. To not have one would kill us. I am the only other teacher at the school who has the ability to direct a one-act. The killer is that the play festival occurs three days after we come back from the Harvard Tournament over Presidents' Day weekend. I have essentially 4 weeks to start from scratch. :mad:

Is it wrong for me to want to sit in the corner and cry right about now?

At least the spongebath might be fun?

In all seriousness, things will be better next week, and hopefully the misery that is this week will pass quickly.

[CamEdwards]

I was goingi to say "I have to give my wife a spongebath" should never be followed by a frowny face.

In all seriousness, it does sound sucky. On the other hand, you sound like a great teacher and a fine husband. Too bad you're married and I'm straight. :D

[Buccaneer]

That's funny in peculiar way for I remember in 1975 being a runner at ASU for a band/chorale competition while I was in HS. There was nothing like trying to get 800 bewildered high schoolers going in the right direction on campus, trying to appease the individual judges in the various classrooms (esp. when someone doesn't show up) and staying out of the way of band/chorale parents.

[Blade6119]

Are you a teacher at ASU or another school in phoenix?

[AZSpeechCoach]

I teach at Central High in Phoenix. I did graduate from ASU though. Thanks for the kind words. I'm trying to schedule my Friday. It appears that I will be going to the tournament in the morning, being replaced mid-day, and then going back to the tournament after my wife is back home. Then, Saturday, I am at the tournament all day. Maybe my colleague who in December urged me to cut back was on to something :eek:

[JPhillips]

After spending a year part-time coaching the Rowan County Kentucky speech team I have an enormous amount of respect for speech coaches. The good ones, which seems to describe you, really do work harder than any other teacher I've seen. Hope you make it through it in one piece.

[AZSpeechCoach]

I was goingi to say "I have to give my wife a spongebath" should never be followed by a frowny face.

Yeah, I suppose the spongebath is more for my benefit than hers. It's only wisdom teeth, not something like gall bladder surgery. :D

[Franklinnoble]

I can guarantee my week is worse than yours. Count your blessings.

[oliegirl]

Anthony is home with strep throat, and I have a horrible cold which I fear will be turning into something worse and spreading to radii before the week is out due to the germ infestation we seem to have right now. I'll trade you a sucky week for a sick 7 year old anyday :)

Good news is that our new king size bed was delivered today so we'll both be able to sprawl out and sleep comfortably tonight! Unless I kick radii to the couch and keep Anthony in bed with me ;)

[Eaglesfan27]

Anthony is home with strep throat, and I have a horrible cold which I fear will be turning into something worse and spreading to radii before the week is out due to the germ infestation we seem to have right now. I'll trade you a sucky week for a sick 7 year old anyday :)

Good news is that our new king size bed was delivered today so we'll both be able to sprawl out and sleep comfortably tonight! Unless I kick radii to the couch and keep Anthony in bed with me ;)
A King size bed rocks :)

[tanglewood]

I'm sorry, but it's not going to get any better next week.

hxxp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4187183.stm

[AZSpeechCoach]

Update:

I was feeling better, due to some sleep and all of your thoughts and stories. I go in for my workshop that's so important that I needed a sub all day. We spent 8 hours going over a computer program that identifies the colleges that students might be interested in. This is a counseling program. It does nothing to support the teaching of English, and it will not help my students pass the state graduation test one bit. However, it appears that I will need to spend significant amounts of time doing the job of the guidance counselors, because "Everyone has an English class." I teach Freshmen. Ninety percent of them will never go on to college. Fifty percent of them will not even be at Central at the end of their senior year. We did spend big money on this, though, so...

I'm really not trying to be a whiny bitch. I just needed a thread to rant. The warm fuzzies do mean a lot, though.