Well THAT'S over

Good heavens, what a stressful Saturday. Too much human interaction, no time for downtime, too much doing stuff where I didn't really know what I was doing.

Honors' day was okay; I had done that before so I kind of knew what went on there, but it did mean interviewing eight different scared high schoolers and trying to determine which of them would be more deserving of a scholarship.

There were donuts and coffeecake but I didn't take any.

Then, I ran home at noon and grabbed some lunch.

Then I went back for the olympiad. I didn't know what I was doing, I had to go to a totally different building for my packet, there was no USB port on the computer in the first room I was in so it was fortunate I had e-mailed the identification portion (from photos) of the test to myself.

The first round was fine; it was high schoolers who really aren't that different from the people I teach normally. I also got some grading done while they worked on the test.

Then I graded the test. Found an error I made in it and had to compensate for that.

Got a few minutes to relax (was offered pizza or a donut; didn't take either) while I was waiting for the second test.

The second test was junior high students. I forgot how crazy and squirrely and LOUD junior high kids can be. One team (these are teams of two who are supposed to work together) started arguing and pushing each other, and I looked sharply at them and said, "Don't make me ask you to leave the test." But it was all fine; these are basically good kids so they settled down and they even apologized to me as they left after the test. I said it was okay, that it had been a long day for everyone. (And yeah, I was close to freaking out over the noise level myself).

I had to grade those in a super hurry because it was the last test of the day and the scores were needed for finding out the awards. And I had to sit at the table next to the pizza and smell that the whole time I was grading. I commented to the people in the room that I picked the wrong week to go low-carbohydrate. (Still, I didn't take any pizza or a donut. I need to figure out something for dinner now but I'm so tired I kind of want to cry, and I don't feel like cooking anything.)

I'm tired and I'm actually surprised I can form complete sentences because I got to the point where I couldn't even trust myself to total up the points at the very end. I'm BEAT.

Also, I'll just note in passing, that the women on campus (and women in the school districts) seemed to be disproportionately represented today. I know at honors day both of my full-time female colleagues were there and I didn't see any of the men.

I know what I did was valuable and important and all that jazz but I'm tired and feeling slightly resentful at having given up and entire "recuperation" day to do stuff that just made me tireder. I hope someone else volunteers for this next year.

****

Edited to add Sunday morning:

I talked to my parents last night. They were telling me about how my brother and sister-in-law and niece were going to Hilton Head - my sister-in-law has a conference, her room is paid for, but it's possible for them all to go for a cheap price. And they were telling me about the stuff they were doing on the way and I was SO JEALOUS.

Why do I work all the time? Why is my life so small? Why do I have so little fun? Am I just the Designated Responsible and maybe my "fun" comes in the next life (if there's reincarnation, though I'm really not sure I'd take the option if it were offered me) or the next world?

Also, my mom's missing valentine's card - the one I sent her - showed up. It had been opened and then taped shut (she asked me if I had taped it). Also, the postmark was on Feb. 14, about five days after I actually posted the cards. VERY SUSPICIOUS. So apparently there's a thief somewhere in the mail system who takes cards out and looks for money or giftcards in them.

My valentine from them never showed up and as she sent it a week or more before Valentine's day, I suspect it will NEVER come. This makes me so sad, it feels so ridiculous and unnecessary.

So maybe I won't get any birthday cards this year, because of a crappy mail thief.

I know this upsets me way more than it should but there are so few little daily joys I have and being able to trust that I can get personal mail without someone ripping it off was one of them. (And God only knows if someone sent me a present and someone ripped it off....though again, it seems that boxes make it to me okay, maybe it's harder for someone to steal a box out of the mail stream and have it not be obvious)

I'm just tired and sad right now and I really don't want to leave the house today but I have stuff I have to do at church so I will, but. I want to go to petting zoos and "look for gems in a bucket of rocks" places and museums and all the fun stuff my relatives get to do and I don't because (a) there's nothing like that near me and (b) I'm always so busy all the time doing stuff so I don't worry about losing my job and....I don't know. I'm just overtired and upset about things because I am.