Stress Week

Friday, June 2, 1995

Almost Saturday. Lisa’s already asleep, resting for tomorrow’s trip down to L.A. and Grandpa, whom everyone is sure is on his final trek (he will be released from the hospital tomorrow; he’s newly heavily medicated, at times incoherent, at times so lucid it’s scary... at least according to Lisa, since I didn’t see him on Wednesday... she took off the whole day for a visit while I stayed and taught).

This week has been hell. From returning from the three-day weekend on Tuesday (and learning that a number of classes had been broken into and either robbed or vandalized), to Lisa’s Grandpa, to never picking up the lawnmower (just no time), to Lisa’s final student government banquet (Tuesday) and picnic (today), to computer lab times and aborted Academic Detentions, to final crazed and panicked attempts by 4/4H’s to finish their electronic portfolios (which I will look over later in the weekend), to last-ditch attempts by those same students to put together drafts of their final Book Report Essays (which I would have teacher-edited IF they had come in today... but they didn’t [thus making me wonder about "last-ditch" efforts]), to Jane’s good-bye party today, and June’s tracking me down to get me to agree to become a Cluster Group facilitator next year, to learning of two more events next week (the Standard Level restructuring at the D.O. on Monday, and the yearbook distribution on Tuesday), to assessing the prospective Honors essays (two good, three shitty), to having to decide on room changes, to networking with ASTD for possible training positions, to...

Well, you get the picture.

New hot rumor alert: Jack Knight will retire this year. Digby heard it from Ray, who heard it from Smith, who supposedly heard it from the horse’s mouth. Well, with a pipeline like that, how could it be false? If it’s true, the administrator with the longest tenure on campus will be Joan. Irony of ironies.

One last note before bed at eleven-fifty: I guess Cedric came down with new rules for the Campus Supervisors. Much grumbling from the do-nothings. I overheard one saying to the other, "I’m glad I’m not coming back in September... sounds like Cedric is gonna come down hard..." And all I can say is: ‘Bout fuckin’ time.

Night.