Tossed in the deep end

Ok, today the madness began. I don't really even have time to write about it because I should be stressed out. Long story short: I went into school for a workshop session, went and got a tea, came back at 12:58 to start planning for my 7:20 night class, found out that enrollment is up and I will start a new Pre-Intermediate class tomorrow at 9:30am. Ok, so yeah there's stress, but what makes it worse is that the building is closed form 9pm (basically we finish our classes and are hurried out since everyone wants to lock up and go home) until 8am. Brilliant. In other words, I needed to haul ass and finish as much as possible at work, where I could get help, and then do some more at home tonight, and then come early in the morning to prep.

I gulped down the panic, plowed through my lesson plan for tonight, got it nearly 100% finished and then realized that I didn't know how to succinctly explain Defining Relative Clauses (who, that, which, where, when) and more importantly, when we can omit them. But shit, that's half of what I was trying to teach my students tonight.

So between 5:48 and 6:45 I held the starring role in an action/grammar movie. Basically, I only just held it together about my complete lack of preparation, and all the senior teachers in the office coached me through it. It was hilarious in all the moments when I didn't want to scream with frustration. It was the grammatical equivalent of successfully defusing a bomb only moments before it detonated, killing millions.

So I came home, all ready to rock and roll on my lesson plan for tomorrow morning--the one that my Lesson Planning Goddess, Sharon basically dictated to me in a frantic rush between 5:14 and 5:48--and I realized that I forgot to bring home the text book and only grabbed the student workbook and a few photocopied tidbits. So jeez. It's like the bomb is ticking again.

I will be so glad for a beer tomorrow night. I might even go back to Bora and see if I can get my special discount... :-P