Not a good day!

Ever have one of those days where it seems like nothing goes right? That was my day today. In all honesty, a lot of things went fine. I got to work on time, and I didn't hit any major traffic on the way home. The students I tutored in the Writing Center were kind and receptive. And they have nice new coffee cup lids in the faculty lounge!

So what did not go well? My class. A third of my regular students (8!) didn't show up. Out of those that came, another 4-5 did not have their essays with them, and today was a work on our writing day. I didn't get to hand out their papers at the beginning of class for them to see how well they did because I was off trying to find a dry erase marker since someone had taken the one in the classroom. Them my students all clammed up and just stared at me or at their desks. It was painful.

Oh yeah, and today was the day my dean was sitting in and evaluating me. We get evaluated every other year, and today was the day. I knew she was coming, and I thought that I had a good lesson plan for the day, but that didn't really work out. I can't tell you how frustrated and discouraged I was.

On top of it, my students got worked up over the fact that they weren't getting Essay #2 back today. This was as they were getting ready to do the evaluations, so I already know (my dean gave me a heads up) that some of my scores will be really low.

Then, just in case I didn't feel bad enough already, one of my students stayed after class and made me feel like crap. She has been negative since the first day, but it's typically been directed elsewhere, and I've stopped asking her how her day is. Today, all the negativity toward me came out. I'm sorry, but student-teacher chemistry does not really play a factor when you have only turned in 3-5 (out of 30+) assignments this quarter. I know that she's the one who has a problem and that she does this to other teachers (based on what she's told me in the past), and on a better day, I would have brushed it off pretty quickly, but on a day like today, it's a lot harder.

All of this made me think back over Psalm 126 and how the Israelites were discouraged and how they looked at what God has done in the past. I can't let myself just ruminate on this all night/all week until I meet with my dean next Monday. Instead, I am working on focusing on what went well. It's amazing how quickly that changes things.