overwhelmed

     It seems I hop over to my blog whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed, or stressed. (Which explains why I've posted so much recently!)
    This year our grade level is specializing, with teachers pairing up and rotating their classes. The standard pairing is language arts and social studies, and math and science.  (Although Puakenikeni and I have switched it up -- I teach lang arts and science, she handles social studies and math. Side note: we are -- well, I am, at least -- still licking our wounds after getting a good walloping from a higher-up about that decision. But we're sticking to it.) You'd think teaching 2 subjects would make things easier. It does. At the same time, I'm already wondering how to coordinate guided reading in small groups for 40 kids in all.
     The remedy to feeling overwhelmed? Don't give myself too much time to fret over it. We just wrapped up a 4-day weekend. Several months ago, I decided to plan a day-and-a-half jaunt to Hilo. I mulled over it for a while, wondering whether I'd be panic-stricken about losing out on that much time for correcting piles of papers. I packed with great anxiety, but decided to leave my ungraded papers at home. And you know what? I had an amazing mini-trip. Yes, those papers are still ungraded, but I will get to them. And it was wonderful to know I had dedicated a small period of time to doing something non-work-related.
    So I'm still feeling a little overwhelmed, but I did get my balance back this weekend.