Tanned, Rested and Ready - and Anxiety Ridden!!

Well, not actually that tanned. I try to make an effort not to get too much sun on my skin. These days, who knows how many UV rays are coming through the atmosphere. Anyway, just back from a week at the Oregon Coast - lovely, relaxing, sunny and fun. It's become a tradition for us now - my parents host a big rented beach house and family and friends come - some flitting through on the weekend, some staying the whole week. This week was later in the summer than usual, and I found myself starting to get a little tense towards the last few days because I'm now feeling the pinch of getting ready to GO.

But despite a nice holiday and time still left, I'm starting to feel that ol' school-is-starting-anxiety. You know the kind - where you start breaking out even though you're 36 years old (just in time for your ID Badge picture), when your dreams become increasingly anxiety ridden (leading up to the inevitable arriving-at-the-first-day-of-school-with-no-pants-on dream), and everything in life begins to become peripheral when compared to GETTING-READY-FOR-SCHOOL- AAAARRGGGGHHH!!!

So my latest dream is this: I arrive to teach in my new classroom (I've already had several about not being able to find the new classroom or it not being completed yet) - only to discover my schedule's been changed! I'm only teaching ONE Social Studies course - and it's the new AP US government course - BUT, I have to teach it as HALF of a class period with ....wait for it.... DRAMA! Yes, I have to teach drama and AP US Govt at the same time. Then my other classes are all Drama. I gasp, horrified - not because I have anything against Drama, but because I know nothing about it except what that young teacher down the hall always enhances her life with everytime anyone asks her how she is - so I rush to the VP and I say, "VP, this is all wrong! Only yesterday my schedule was normal with government, global studies, etc! I can't teach Drama!" His response: "Darn, I hate it when this happens." I am agog. Who is teaching the courses I was SUPPOSED to teach? "Well," he says, "there just weren't as many students as we thought, and so instead of putting them in social studies, we're changing that to drama." What? What kind of sense does this make? Then he looks more closely at my new schedule and his eyebrows go up. "Look, this last class isn't drama!" I look with him at Period 8. No, that one is teaching girls how to become secretaries. I kid you not. And it is in Room 742 - 742??? Our rooms only go up to 320!! Thankfully I wake up (panting) to the knowledge that I still have all my regular social studies courses listed on my schedule.

Now, I'm not saying that this dream could have anything to do with the fact that I have no idea how I'm going to teach a year of AP US Government, or that Little Guy was in a summerfun drama camp, or that I was a legal secretary/paralegal for 15 years before becoming a teacher. It probably isn't any of those things combined to play on my worries about the new year starting. (It was hardly bizarre as the dream I had two weeks ago about being forced to teach Calculus and, not knowing diddly about Math, started the class by grilling up crabcakes on the Coleman in front of the blackboard.)

And don't get me wrong - I can't WAIT for it to start! I LOVE teaching, I never would have thought to find a career where every morning I wake up excited about the day. I am really looking forward to this year. It's just that age old thing about wanting to be a GOOD teacher that always gets me. Well, I can only forge ahead. Dreams be damned.

Maybe I'll work some more drama into my lesson plans this year...