My word of the day: irritation.

I’ll say right now, this is not the most positive of posts for Monday, so if you are looking for motivational or uplifting, there’s nothing to see here.

I’m irritated because I’ve got students who’ve all ready given up, for whatever reason. They think life will not get better beyond their 8th grade year, and have said or written as much. They won’t read, they won’t write, and think they can get by with that behavior. It’s irritating, because I know better, our 8th grade team knows better, and that’s hard to watch them go through the motions. We push and pull and cajole and plead and try our hardest to get them to come with us, working harder than they are to get them to a spot they don’t want to be. Ugh.

I’m irritated because last night, my youngest daughter, the one we just took on a college visit, comes in a says, “I wish I would have taken school seriously last year.” Gee, ya think? Had a lot of fun with friends, and couldn’t understand when we’d ground her or get on her case about grades. “C’s get degrees” is one of the things she said to us, OUT LOUD, that landed her in hot water. Needless to say, I think seeing some of the academic standards that are expected of her in college is making her a bit uneasy. Good, it should.

I’m irritated because school is just, school. I’m tired, I’m grouchy, I’m not happy with how the class is running, with how parents are reacting, all of it. Part of it is my own problem with being swamped by a bunch of writing to correct, but there are other parts as well, that I won’t go into detail right now.

I’m irritated with the trip we had this weekend. I’d written about this Saturday about the calm that happens down there, but this time, it just didn’t. My wife’s aunt wanted to talk about politics all the time (very left leaning) and it just kind of wore on us. We consider ourselves very moderate, but are being pushed to the left with the idiocy that’s going in the Iowa Legislature and the national government’s dysfunction. A weekend without that kind of yuck would have been great. We really didn’t get it.

What will I do? Slap on a happy face and move forward. I work in a place where being overly negative doesn’t work. I live in a home where being overly negative doesn’t work. So, I’ll be as positive as possible, and work through it, like I always do.