i love my students

Sometimes, you have too many easy going and good days and the Gods of Luck and Karma decide you need to have a reality check.
Thanks, guys.

It started off with forgetting to brush my teeth, but not realizing that until I'm halfway to school. Whatever, right? I have Altoids, I'll brush when I get home. It's a little icky feeling, but not the biggest thing ever.
Then. Then, then, then. It all started to fall apart. I get stuck in traffic right behind a horrible, huge, injury-filled injury & deadly accident. Not stuck for a little while, a long while. About an hour and a half long while. That sucked. I couldn't even continue on 64 East, I was told to turn around and go on 64 West. Thankfully, there was one exit before I would have to go back through the Bridge-Tunnel, so I got off there and drove through Norfolk to school.

Edited to add: I saw the news was reporting on this accident and the many others this morning due to the heavy fog. The article's pretty crazy to read, since I only heard the brief mentions of closures and back-ups (for good chunk of time, no one could get to the southside from the peninsula). The part that scared me? The accident ~.5 miles away from me happened less than 10 minutes before I got there. A driver going westbound crossed the median and hit a car going eastbound. The westbound driver died and the eastbound driver had injuries. Rebecca and I joked about how I was close enough to be in there--and it ended up being true! That was almost me. I prefer being stuck in traffic, not the accident itself. I hate commuting.

I got there with half an hour to spare in my 1st bell. Those kids were in the library, finishing up their research for their first day there. My amazing co-teaching had everyone and everything on lock. Thank god we talked about the research library day plans ahead of time. I took a few kids upstairs that had to do project presentations, got in touch with a kid (LaQuan, mentioned later) who was missing info from his Middle College application.
All of the rushing around and tension of the morning gave me the hugest headache. My 3rd bell study hall wanted to finish watching a movie we started last class. We did, but other people kept yelling over the movie. All the noise and chaos and everything that happened started to make me feel really overwhelmed and almost like a panic attack was starting. I finally had to stop the movie for a sec and tell them, "you talk or you watch, choose. My head's about to explode, so please, let's cut the noise in half." They chose to sit and watch the movie, thankfully.
My lunch this week has been chicken salad sandwiches with pita bread. I'd been leaving all the materials at school instead of lugging it back and forth. I pull out a piece of pita to make my sandwich at lunch and I look down and see ANTS. ALL OVER MY BREAD. I had to throw out everything because somehow ants had invaded the WHOLE BAG. Wow.
My 7th bell was supposed to go to the library like 1st bell did today. We get down there, only to realize in 10 minutes that they had not double-booked, but triple-booked English 10 classes. Ugh. My library dates for my 7th bell got moved to Monday and Wednesday next week and NOBODY LET ME KNOW. They all thought someone ELSE had already told me. Wow. It was kind of funny, because I almost cried in front of class when I asked them to not embarrass me in any way, shape, or form. My 7th bell has some of the "usual suspects" of the school, and kids who are generally apathetic and unfocused.
The amazing thing? This whole day, not one problem with my students. My kids were incredibly sweet. My 1st bell said "Mrs. P!! You're here! And ok!!", which was nice to hear when I finally got to the library. Kids in my 3rd bell were hilarious and Cleo and Vanessa visited when they finished their class work. Kids in my 5th bell are alway sweet, but today they were extra sweet (and kept their voices down). My 7th bell was pretty concerned, acted right, left notes on the board, started planning my "going away party", etc.
The most amazing, though, was LaQuan. LaQuan and I have had our ups and downs this year. But, throughout the year, he's become more and more academic, interactive, etc. to the point where he came up to me and declared, "I think I might go to college." To which I told him, "I think you'd love it." He's the kind of kid that acts out because he's bored in class. He's full of potential, he's creative, he's sarcastic (to the point of frustration, at times) and he's insightful and intelligent. Amy and I both have him--back to back, even-- and we've both pushed him to try out Middle College, where he'd be taking a combination of community college and H.S. classes. He's totally sold on the idea, ready to go, finished his application and turned it in. We're all working together to make sure he gets accepted. Today, he told me that he had a brilliant idea for his research paper: 3 leaders of World War II and he was EXCITED ABOUT IT (WHAT?!). During 7th bell, he'll usually come in to borrow a pencil for his class across the hall. He came back to give it back and I told him what happened in the library, because we were just laughing and talking about it in class. I had to go see Rebecca to see if I could get the mobile lab or computer lab. Nope-both gone. So, we're trying to figure out where we can go, etc. when LaQuan comes around the corner and says he asked Mr. W if he had any extra computers. Mr. W says he can take 5 kids, so I have LaQuan take 5 of my students. Wow. That was... just, wow. I was blown away by him taking the initiative and go to another one of his teachers with a computer lab and ask him that. Wow.

The plus side is that this "bad" day made me stop and realize how long it had been since I'd had a "bad" day. That's also pretty amazing. Now I'm going to go do something stupid or ridiculous or hilarious to get rid of this day.