Exhausted.

Last night I had meeting number 2 of my 13-week-long course at UMass Boston (pictured above).

The course meets from 7-9:30 PM. A nightmare for me, who am normally in bed by that ungodly late hour of the evening. Last week, being the first week, the instructor let us leave at around 8:45. That was a delightful surprise. She even proposed that we consider meeting from 6-8:30 instead. I was psyched, but didn't get my hopes up. Just as well. When we arrived at class last night, the instructor informed us that the class would have to meet at 7 as regularly scheduled. I was a little disappointed, but I knew going into the thing that the class would go until 9:30. I had made peace with that.

I kept holding out hope that she might offer us the chance to skip the break (because she HAD to be planning on giving us a break, right), and just leave a little earlier than 9:30. Maybe 9:10 or something. Hey, its still late, but I'll take any minute earlier that I can.

Well, I was in for a not-so-delightful surprise when I went to class last night.

We NEVER got a break. We worked right on through the entire 2.5 hour period. At around 9, the instructor gave us a 15 minute period of time to collaborate with a partner. She told us that starting at 9:15, each of the 7 groups would have two minutes to present their findings. I smelled disaster right from the word go. Come on, 7 groups in 15 minutes. If you don't know teachers, then you don't know that we're TALKERS! Myself included. There was no way in hell we were getting through all 7 presentations in 15 minutes. The timeframe was blown out of the water as soon as the first group took the floor. They spoke for 12 minutes!!! That left 3 minutes for the remaining 6 groups. Do you see where this is going? I was in group 2, and believe me when I tell you, I held the floor for maybe 25 seconds. I hoped the other groups would cop on. No such luck. Long story longer, we wound up in the classroom until freakin' 9:45.

Jesus, as if I have nothing better to do with my time.

And this the thing...

This woman is there teaching me how to teach, but she has no grasp of time management or regulating discussion flow. Jesus, I was observed by my principal last week and she commended me many times on my excellent classroom management skills. Christ, I should take over the class at UMass. I can tell you this right now....nobody would be in that room a second beyond 9:30. And we'd have a break, too. Fo' sho!!

Whatever.

Today was a half day for kids, so I should have been able to spend some quality time working on report cards, which are coming out Friday. However, one of the two million committees I'm on met from 12-2:30. We then had a full school professional development meeting that lasted until almost 5, our longest one yet.

Again, bad timing all around!!