"the dream"

before school started *last* year, i had a dream about the first day of school. jesse and his mom (both teachers) told me that it is natural--everyone has a "first day of school" dream, every summer. based on that idea, i figured i would have one this summer. oddly enough, i had it very close to the beginning of the summer. among other things, it involved me teaching at a high school instead of middle school. i felt lucky, like i'd gotten the annual dream over with early and i wouldn't have to endure another one before school ended. jesse cautioned that it was too early for it to be the authentic annual "first day of school" dream and i would likely have another.

when i woke up this morning, i realized that he was right. i had a very strange dream that felt like it lasted all night, probably because it spanned the ENTIRE school day, about 7:30 am all the way to 4:30 pm. i started out as an 8th grade teacher (normal) but there was another teacher in the classroom. i don't think that it was my classroom, and it was arranged sort of oddly. i was writing on a chalkboard, instead of a whiteboard, and then i realized that i was writing in chalk on a whiteboard instead of using dry erase markers. (i vastly prefer the dry erase to chalk!) i wasn't prepared for the class, didn't have any activities to fill, the kids weren't listening, and i was already having to quiet them down. on the first day of school they are generally really good. my classes didn't develop any big behavior issues last year until 2-3 weeks after school began.

so i got through this class and then the dream jumped to after school. this part is a little bit murky, but the gist of it is that i was in some kind of after school professional development for 4th grade teachers and all of a sudden i was a 4th grade teacher. i remember off-handedly thinking to myself that the 4th grade standards are a little bit different and i was dissapointed that i had done so much work on the 8th grade standards and then i wasn't going to be using them. then i went to another professional development session after the 4th grade episode, and it turned out that i was a 2nd grade teacher.

there you have it. anxiety central. let's just say that it majorly inspired me to spend today preparing for the first two weeks of school, which i haven't done prep for as i need to. (i want to start out the week with all of my photocopies made for the the entire week and the agenda for every day planned.)