2008-01-21 - 1:48 p.m.
Coughin' and rollin'

So I survived my first week of student teaching. I took over three class periods and actually did a pretty decent job. I did lose my voice by the end of it, probably only half a by product of having to speak so much and so loudly and half because I'm pretty sure I've got bronchitis.

I don't really feel that horrible. I've only been running low temps (when I have a fever at all, my temperature has been consistently under 97 degrees, whatever that means). My voice is gone, my chest feels like it's in a vice and I've got this cough that makes me ache from my teeth to my toes. It's amazing.

Luckily, my nose is staying of this. No running like a broken faucet or being plugged up like a drain at a Wookie convention. Which is great.

I stayed in last night, napping and watching TV. And I managed to keep my ass on the couch all day Saturday, reading for school and watching a little TV. I was feeling pretty awesome until Butterscotch made me come down for dinner. He made me chili and cornbread and we ate it and watched The Celebrity Apprentice, which he had Tivoed. Then I took a shower and then I felt as weak as a kitten. I was all shaky and felt as awful as I did when I came home from school on Friday.

It was kinda cute. Mrs. K had to teach for me Friday, obviously, and she explained my lack of voice as being a result of having to yell over 6th and 7th periods. Which was a lie, but the kids were really sympathetic and several of them yelled immediate, wide eyed apologies at me when they heard the news.

I start teaching all 5 class periods tomorrow. It's a little scary, but I'm excited. I've been teaching the regular classes, two of which are very difficult to control. The classes I'm adding on are full of high achieving honors kids who are easily manipulating into being good and doing their work. Now, okay, that's awfully cynical of me. They're not easily manipulated, they're good, honest kids who do the work out of an overachiever's sense of obligation. Better?

I thought not. At any rate, I have eighty thousand more journals to grade (I'm going at an astounding rate of 2 journals an hour! Go tortoise, go!). And I want a nap. I feel mostly better, nearly healed really, but this stupid cough is rattling my brain.