Well, write it down. It only took them a week to break me. Technically, half a day.

Today was our back to school orientation. The paperwork. The meetings. The training. Everyone I meet is handing me papers and telling me what I should do with them. I've met what seems like hundreds of new people. My room isn't ready. The psycho in my room before me is a bitch. No other word for it. Planning has me so terrified I don't know where to begin. And school is starting soon!

First, the psycho drama. Last night, she came into my room and disconnected the dvd/vcr combo. It was hers and it's fine that she took it. I would have liked to have been told she was going into my room, but whatever. She left the vcr that was in her room on my counter. Not hooked up, not plugged in, and with a dvd that I had accidentally left in the other player tossed on top. I feel completely violated. Who knows what else she's come in and taken. Be an adult and come to me and say, "I accidentally left my dvd/vcr here, can I switch them?" I'm not going to say no.

LMK urged me to lock my room at night when I leave. Great idea, honey! There's just one problem. She hadn't turned in her key for that room. That's right, she had my key all summer! The secretaries cornered her today and got it back, but what the hell.

The other problem is I spend every day feeling completely stupid. I swear, everything I learned in college is gone. GONE. Now I have diagnostic tests to give that I have never heard of while I have students in the room. How do I take one kid to the hall to administer a test while I have 25 others sitting in the room. Number one rule of teaching - never leave them alone!

Everyone on my team has such great, creative ideas. Most of the time I feel like a bumbling fool. They explained how we were dividing kids up today. Everyone is furiously scribbling text scores and I'm still trying to figure out how exactly to do it. I feel like it takes me a second (ok several minutes) longer than everyone else to pick things up. I feel like I'm always scrambling to catch up. Lesson plans? I have no lesson plans, I have no idea where to even start planning.

Everyone keeps telling me how great I'm going to be. Well, I'm not so sure. I spend the day feeling inferior and trying to catch up. I know I'm putting a lot of unneeded pressure on myself and I know it. I don't want to make mistakes. I don't want to look weak. I don't want people to look at me and think, "Why did they hire her?" But I wonder that every day.

To add insult to injury, we watched a really cute video today and it was about a school near my hometown in Ohio. (Near as in - my dad attended high school there) As I'm watching the video it hits me. This is not where I expected to be starting my teaching career. I wish I was in my old district, where I knew everyone and everyone knew me. Worst of all, I miss my mommy. She'd know what to do. She'd be helping me and giving me advice and I wouldn't feel so alone.

The saga, coupled with my other feelings were just too much. Luckily, I have a wonderful husband who got lunch with me and "talked me down". We're good for each other.

When I thanked him tonight, he told me that he would have never gotten through his first few months of teaching without me telling him he would be fine and he was doing a good job. He said he was going to do the same for me. At that point, I laughed and told him, "The difference is, I know you're lying." Even he had to laugh at that.