Report Cards, Coferences, and Sickness

I can't even believe how long it's been since I've posted. The last few weeks have been consumed with work as usual and getting first quarter report cards done for all 44 of my students. We had parent-teacher conferences last Wednesday and Thursday, and had to give report cards to parents at that time. The meetings with families went well. We had to have a few tough conversations as usual, but they all went smoothly. Although it's a lot for my partner teacher and me to meet with all 44 families, it's nice to have someone else there with you to back you up if needed. A couple of years ago she was out of the country during conferences and I had to meet with everyone by myself. That was no fun! I sure made them short, sweet, and to the point. That makes "normal" conferences look good! This year was sort of weird because we had 27 appointments on Wednesday. It was pretty crazy and we went non-stop from 1:20 to 8:00. Thursday felt nice, though.

What made conferences tough was that I was starting to get sick. I had been feeling slightly feverish and my throat was hurting. When I got home on Thursday night and sat down on the couch, I was fully sick. After spending all of Friday and Saturday on the couch or in bed with a fever, I was pretty sure I had strep throat. By Sunday it was clear that I would not be making it to work on Monday, so I got a sub and wrote a plan (which makes being sick even more miserable by creating extra work). I was able to get in to see the doctor yesterday who confirmed my diagnosis. She told me that I should wait to go back to work until tomorrow. I'm glad she did because I would not have made it through the day today. Both tomorrow and Thursday will be busy days at school, so I'm trusting for strength.

I will have a lot of catching up to do this weekend, which I'm not looking forward to, but hopefully the weekend will bring some fun as well. I doubt we'll have any trick-or-treaters on Friday since we have a dark and mostly kid-less neighborhood. I should probably get some candy anyway. Who knows, this could be the year that some kids decide to come by. I'm sure I could just eat it myself if no one shows up!