Rock bottom

 Maybe it was the toxic positivity/ gaslighting:  If it was any team that had to deal with this, I'm glad it's yours because you are so great.

Just stop.

Maybe it was the tone deafness when 3rd grade couldn't use the bathrooms in our hall:  Have your students go to the 1st/2nd hall instead of the 5th/6th hall because they're testing and we don't want to disturb them.

Meanwhile we're testing next to a jackhammer.

Maybe it was the fact that I went home with a migraine on Tuesday that made my evening miserable and hadn't completely gone away.

Whatever it was, I went to school yesterday, as Alissa put it, with guns a blazin'.

I saw her first thing and said, "I'm going to go talk to Matt.  Want to come?"

She said yes.  We got Miriam and then we went to the office.

Riley saw us coming and said, "Uh-oh."

I told Matt we needed to talk to him.  He said, "OK."

I said, "In your office."

This is the problem with having teachers Thelma-years-old.  I've lived a long life and I'm not ready to be pushed around.

We aired our grievances and he was sort of shocked by some of the things we'd been told.  He said there was nothing he could do about the contractors' hours (for example, they pretty consistently leave at 2:00 PM).  I asked, "Why do they hold all the power in this relationship?"

He said, "Have you ever hired a contractor?"

I said, "Yes, I actually have."  (Again, I'm Thelma-years-old.)

It was nice to be heard though.

They all suddenly hopped to, finding us alternate testing locations in the school.  And alternate existing locations.  They checked in with us and made sure we had everything we needed.  They brought each third grade teacher a Swig at lunch time.

Guns a blazin' helps sometimes.

It was still awful.

Everyone was dysregulated and emotional and stressed.  

The admin and coaches have been dropping in unannounced all year to observe lessons and ask our students what they are learning to encourage us to communicate learning intentions.

I said, "Don't stop by and ask our students what our learning intentions are today."

Alissa said, "We have none."

We had inside recess because of the rain.

Miriam's husband texted her that their dryer had caught fire.

We watched the rest of Wall-E in the afternoon.

I walked with Kim after school and that helped the stabbing pain behind my eye.  It was good to just breathe air and be on the hill behind our houses where, guess what?  There aren't any jackhammers.

All evening I avoided screens and noise.  I was home alone, but I didn't listen to anything.

I went to bed early and Adam came home from church and we talked a minute, then I went back to sleep.  A bit after midnight, I was awakened by an earthquake!  It was small, 3.9, and just over the mountain.  It freaked me out.  It was so short that I was sure there would be more and my just under the surface migraine came back with a vengeance.

Adam was on his laptop, trying to find out information about the earthquake and I was trying not to die.  After a while, I staggered to my chair.  I decided I was gong to take a sick day.  Enough.  I needed a day of peace to recover.  I have never felt more guilty and like I was deserting the army about taking a sick day.  I don't know if my class will be able to stay in our classroom or will have to go elsewhere.  I wrote my plans (in the 2:00 AM hour, so they're about that coherent) with a lot of work on the computers in the hopes that would make the day easier.

I'm 10% hopeful that it will be quieter tomorrow.

10% is a small number, but demolition can't go on forever right?  You eventually hit bedrock?