be warned!

**WARNING: This post is likely to sound much like a verbal venting of ginormous proportions.**

I've just been spending my evening working on homework. I still have a crap load. But my mind has checked out and you know what I'm thinking about? I'm thinking about ordering a pizza and eating the whole dang thing...BY MYSELF!!!

Ah. Well. The last week has been stressful. As mentioned above, I have lots of homework. I just started the last portion of my ESL endorsement and it's requiring a lot more of my time than I really care to offer AND it's a bunch of 'busy work.'

Get this:
We (meaning my ESL endorsement class and I) took our big final for one of the classes last Wednesday. After the test was over, we were told someone would be coming in from Weber State to register for our last portion of the class. A lady walks in and begins by saying, "Now, we usually take longer the first session of class, but I'll try to fit everything I planned into one hour." She obviously wasn't here just to register us. Ten minutes into her little speech, someone raised their hand and asked her who she was. She was our professor and she was explaining the 8 PAGE SYLLABUS. We were told it would be an easy online course with hardly no work. 8 FREAKING PAGES!!!

Needless to say, we were all overwhelmed and felt like we had been broadsided by a semi-truck. I had to excuse myself to the restroom to have a personal moment of mental breakdown with tears and snot and the lip shivers. I realized I now had all of this stuff (projects, journals, tests, articles, blah, blah) to do on top of my already crazy load of homework in my reading (Master's) class. Oh, and don't forget MY JOB as a TEACHER!! When I returned everyone was still in a state of shock and confusion because this lady was making no sense and saying stuff like, "Clear as mud, yet?" Please.

Well, we all left feeling quite weighted down and with the desire to drop the course! I registered online for the course the next day and paid my $70, expecting to be able to access the material by that same night. That wasn't the case. In fact, it didn't show up on my online account until YESTERDAY during lunch. So I was late on one assignment.

I spoke to a fellow teacher and classmate who called the professor to get clarification and she told me some horrific things about what the professor said. The one that most sticks out was in response to this classmate's question of, "How are we supposed to know when stuff is due because it doesn't say on the syllabus." The professor's response: "A good teacher should never have to tell their students due dates, students should know to have their work done on time." ARGH!! A good teacher DOES explicitly tell students due dates because, uh, last time I checked, students aren't mind readers!

I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon trying decode the befuddled mess that is the 8 page syllabus and printing off 7- 20 page articles. And then I spent this afternoon reading said articles and writing 3 of my 5 journal responses (because, you know, who knows when they are due?). And then working on my reading class discussions and reading (4 CHAPTERS!) And I have to write 6 lesson plans for reading class by Sunday all using the 6 methods of Phonemic Awareness.

And I am stupid and challenged myself to not eat candy or any form of sweet (i.e. cake, ice cream, cookies) until my birthday. I chose a really grand time to quit chocolate.

And thanks for reading my venting!!!! A good night to all!!!