and conflicted feelings

Normally I am sorry when one of my fall classes ends but this year I will not be. I have someone with, let's just say, issues requiring an accommodation in how I teach. They are attention-related issues and I regularly get stopped dead and asked to go back to something about five minutes previously. Also person makes mouth noises, which I try to ignore but more than once I've made a mistake because I am VERY distractable these days (combo platter of allergies, being overmedicated, being tired, etc) and it frustrates me.

I am also not looking forward to break as much as I'd like because I fear the house will be chaotic (toddler, dog, my brother's loud media - he is one of those people who liked everything set on "11," my dad's continuous news-watching....all of it.) I can't graciously escape all that often so I don't know. (And I can't wear earplugs, though I will put them in at night I think). I'm kind of jangled after this semester and I would really love some quiet, but cannot in good conscience cancel my trip or stay home just because I "want" quiet and probably won't get it where I'm going.

I almost snapped in front of my morning class today because the person I share that room with left one, lone, dried-out whiteboard pen, and as half of the chalkboard area is covered by that blasted whiteboard, and this is a class that involves copious writing on my part....well, I finally ran down to my office to get a pen I knew I had in there (and brought it back after class. Sorry, I'm too broke for people to free-ride on my whiteboard pen largesse, and it seems the department is no longer able to supply them).

(I really hate whiteboards but I also hate our "black" boards which are actually grey and not black so almost no chalk shows up well on them, because someone, I suspect someone in a fit of passive-aggressiveness because we were originally slated to have ONLY whiteboards until a couple faculty complained about being sensitive to the solvents in whiteboard pens, ordered the grey ones. I have threatened on Occasions to do a midnight run with blackboard paint except I suspect that would not adhere well and would make things worse)

Ugh. I need to adjust my attitude. I read something somewhere (can't link it because it was one of those chain-of-clicking things and I've now lost the site) about striving to be grateful in the face of an ungracious world. And that's one of those things that when I read it, it made me sigh a little and go, Yes, that's it. But it's something that's hard to do when the entire building you are working in is about 10 degrees too cold for comfort, and someone is muttering under their breath while you are trying hard to think and you're reminding yourself that for the next several days your wants and desires won't matter, because you're the uncoupled person at the family gathering and so it's better to just suck it up and get along and remind yourself that when you get back home you can have quiet and NO NEWS on  the tv and no loud video games.....

I try to be a good and gracious person but right now I'm mostly failing. At least I can keep from outright saying stuff to people but I have been doing the slow simmer where then I turn around and rage at some inanimate object if it happens not to be working right while in my orbit....at least an inanimate object won't get its feelings hurt.