Sheepie's Head No Work...

I could be using this picture as a metaphor for how I am feeling.  Or it could be that my new computer has a camera and software that lets me do really goofy things that are hard to resist.  You be the judge...

Day One of the Teacher Workshop Extravaganza began today in a blaze of glory with my being at the high school when I should have been at the middle school.  In fairness, I thought I was in the right place and was responsibly early for what I was supposed to be doing even if I was actually late by the standards of the actual, working schedule.  But, after a long evening of studying up on the material that had been assigned to me as part of my teaching duties today, I was a bit "off" this morning.  Frankly, my being anywhere near the designated workshop sites and not somewhere in Canada is something of a miracle and I should get extra credit for the effort.

I wasn't horrifically late, though and was ready to teach my little heart out when my turn came.  Before I started, though, I took a minute to check in with one of my teaching team members and point out that my section was "lengthy."  I suggested that we might want to consider giving the class a break halfway through as this was going to be a somewhat extended version of The Sheep Show.  Her look of horror convinced me that the inklings I'd been having last night as I waded through the trainer's binder and grumbled about how much my teammates had put on my plate for this course were correct.  

She'd screwed it up.  She's sent me not only my own material, but at least half of her own.  No wonder it looked like I was going to be teaching the whole stupid class myself!  This didn't do much for giving me back the hours lost last night to class preparation, but did make me feel little less persecuted.  

It is never good to start the week off feeling persecuted.

I still ended up with a great deal of talking time, though.  By the time we began the afternoon session and started demonstrating some of the more physical types of interventions one might need to use in a crisis situation, I was already a bit on the loopy side.  I'm not admitting to anything here...but it is entirely possible that I may have said something along the lines of:

C'mon everybody!  Put your hands in the air and wave 'em like you just don't care...let's all do THE SAFETY SHUFFLE!!!!"

It's all sort of a blur.  But there is a backwards evasive maneuver in the program with the same name.  And, for some reason, there were people waving their arms around in the air despite this not being a sanctioned strategy in this course.  If nothing else, I suppose that they will remember me...

I am now awfully tired.  The loopiness that settled in while I was teaching the course has progressed to a state of Profound Loop-osity.  I could be a case study in Loopy at this point.  It was a very, very long day.

For the curious out there, I did bring the sock with me.  I had high hopes for a bit of the needle time.  But, it didn't happen.  Except for a short lunch break, we taught for almost the full day.  When we weren't teaching, we were planning for the next session or answering questions.  No knitting time at all.  Not a single, solitary millisecond.  

In past years, I have looked forward to these workshop days.  I make every effort to get myself signed up for courses that are lecture based and will allow me to just listen and knit happily away.  Not this year.  I am trapped with 20 or so people, none of whom are taking the course voluntarily and am trying to keep them from turning on me by introducing Safety Themed Dance Party Moves.  And this isn't working all that well, frankly.  You can't turn a cow patty into a Cadillac no matter how hard you wave your arms in the air like you just don't care.  

Tomorrow, though, we only have to do it for half a day.  Then I get to make my way back to the high school where I can finally just be a workshop attendee.  And you can bet I'll be knitting from that point on...

If I can stay awake, that is.

SA