To grade or not to grade...

Perhaps the better title is "To grade... or to sleep?"

I am SO, SO, SO tired. I had these fantastic intentions of having so much done and ready for next year by the time school ended this year, but it will be a triumph just to get my grades done. My students had two major assignments due between June 2 and June 7th, and while I have been trudging ever faithfully towards getting through them all... it has felt just like that- trudging.

I have enlisted help where possible. I have a smart and very kind friend that has been well-calibrated on my rubrics and expectations and who is always willing to read papers, and Marc was also willing to help do the math part of calculating grades and then entering them in my gradebook last night, so I haven't been alone in this feat, but I have somewhere in the range of 100 projects left to grade and 130 classwork packets from this week that they turned in today. Bleh...

So, I was planning on coming home tonight and sitting down to grade as many as possible. However, it has been a very long week, and I am tired. Last night, at around 12:45, I was sitting with my eyes closed, fingers on the keyboard, paper in my hand, honestly trying to figure out for a minute why I couldn't figure out what to enter in the gradebook, when I realized that my eyes were closed. I am so not even kidding- I really had that thought process last night. I was still setting myself up to do it tonight, but then when we got home from dinner at 8:45, I put on my pajamas and made the ultimate error or flopping onto my bed for a minute. Oohhhhh, my pillow felt SOOOOO goooooooooood. (Emphasis to show how I felt as my head nuzzled into the coziness of my down pillows).

I got up somehow and made my way in here, determined to get some done, but I can only think of my pillow. Yes, I do have the rest of the weekend, but we are taking Vinny to Disneyland tomorrow, and the idea of putting it all off until the last minute of Sunday afternoon is making me very stressed. I hate being under the wire like that. I think my compromise may be taking papers with me to Disneyland tomorrow. That may sound like insanity, but seriously... consider my logic.
1) There is so much time waiting in line. Although I will have company to talk to, I can multitask.
2) Even some of the rides Vinny is tall enough to go on and likes going on, I cannot go on due to being "an expectant mother." Considering we no longer have annual passes and this will probably the last trip until at least a while after the baby is born, I want Vinny to be able to ride his favorite rides like Matterhorn. (I was contemplating Pirates of the Caribbean, but Disney's website says it is okay. It says that Autopia, however, is not, so there is another one I will not be riding.) Vinny is also tall enough for Gadget's Go Coaster, which he hasn't gone on, but would probably want to, so there are three times that I will probably find myself sitting around waiting and I can grade some then. I only want to bring a few though, because I really don't want to carry them around.

So... as I sit here writing this and debating the thought in my head, I think bed is going to win.

On a side note, the IT at school put up a new firewall system or something and it blocked my blog. Really? I am amused. The amusement of working at an international school with a mostly Mexican population was the huge crowd of students packed into the auditorium to watch the 7:00 am World Cup game, Mexico vs. South Africa, on the big screen. It was further amusing when like 10% of the school population wandered in around 9:30 when the game was over.

Bleh... I am again reminded of how hard it is to be pregnant. At like 22 weeks pregnant, I took my drama kids to Universal Studios, and I managed just fine there. Being on my feet all day was not at all difficult. Of course, two days later, being on my feet all day again for a conference made me want to just fall over. Traveling to Houston last weekend was not terribly hard, although the walk to the mall right behind our hotel kind of kicked my butt, but that is partially because Brent walks so fast (normally, it wouldn't seem fast to me, since my mom is like crazy speed walker, but with me pregnant, it felt way fast). Then, after the long weekend, traveling back really wore me out. By the time I got through security and everything I was tired just wandering to a restaurant and it wasn't even that hard. On the shuttle bus on the way to the parking lot, I must have looked as tired as I felt, because it was crowded and I had to stand, and the woman standing next to me was like, "I cannot believe no one is giving up a seat for you." I kind of laughed, but then was like, "Geez, that would be nice."

I now also realized I never did my self-assessment, so I better do it right now and then go to bed.