I was not ready for that

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 I spent the winter break getting things ready for this semester. I read things. I watched things. I attended meetings and webinars. I did a lot of stuff to prepare for this coming semester. Do you know what I didn't really do? Get the lessons set up. I knew exactly what I was doing the first day and I had an idea of what I was doing the second day, but that was it. I know better than that. A situation like that creates a lot of unnecessary stress and some mild cognitive dissonance. I end up so mentally tired that I just can't function. Every day last week I had to come home and lay on the couch for an hour or so before I could really do anything. I must have things set in my mind what I'm doing or it becomes a train wreck. Which is exactly what happened and we ended up watching a video. The good news is that many of my biology students hadn't ever heard of Darwin (what???) and so we watched a little history on Darwin and Wallace so that did help them to understand a little better. So I guess in the end it all worked out. 

One of the problems was a simulation I wanted to run, Thirsty Bird. In the curriculum I have it is not described well and I was having a difficult time figuring out exactly what happens. So I did what I always do in situations like that, I turned to Google. I found a much better explanation but it was far, far too detailed. So I had to sit down with the two explanations and come up with something that I can actually use. I did that at 4am yesterday because I couldn't sleep anymore. So I got that figured out. This simulation looks like it's going to take a couple of days, but I can't count on that and need to have the rest of the unit ready so we can keep moving and I don't end up like last week. So that's what I'm going to work on today, having everything all laid out and ready to roll so I can keep moving. 

Chemistry was not dissimilar. I had a demo I needed to do and I didn't have the right supplies and it went horribly wrong in the first class and then I had over half the students missing in the second class - ugh!!! Last week was an absolute mess. 

The really good news is that last week is history. It is done and gone. Looking forward I will be more prepared and things will just go better. 

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