Things Have Been...

... a little scary around here.

If you haven't seen or heard much of us lately, it's because we're both swamped.
Mike is busy, busy, busy with school. He's doing really great with it though, and is being a very dedicated student.

As for me. Well, so far this year I've had:

• kids chewing tobacco in class
• a student so incensed that I would have the audacity to take her phone away (after 2 warnings to put it away) that she walked out
• a student who, when I asked him why he wasn't doing his work, told me he would do enough assignments/activities to get by, just not any of the "stupid" ones
• a mouthy Justin Bieber look alike
• an excellent view of the shed where kids go to smoke while they skip class
  
• a major curriculum change, oh, 2 days before school started.

Which really all means that it has been a hectic beginning. I'm trying to remember a chart my mentor teacher once showed me about the emotional patterns of teaching. I think it looked something like this:

So, there's definitely a low to be expected. But, I'm a bit concerned, because my year started out more like this:

I guess the good thing is that there's an upward trend. I think the 12th graders are just being too cool for school. Things seem to be getting better. I just keep reminding myself to embrace the chaos and just do my best to be happy. Things may be kind of scary and hard, but that's no reason not to be happy.