For crying out loud

I'm in the final week of the quarter at work. During this time I usually see an increase in activity regarding some of my responsibilities, but the regular stuff stays pretty consistent. Between yesterday and today, though, it's as though the proverbial ceiling collapsed.

Important things that students were entrusted to do were not accomplished even though they have successfully been doing said things all quarter long. Unfortunately I catch the flack from the public when students do not meet expectations. To the students I am the disappointed parent while to the public I am the child to be scolded. Never mind that my job is to put the students in a position of responsibility and allow them to succeed, hopefully, but to fail if they choose less wisely.

The unexpected and unwarranted outbreak of failures piled up the last two days and has brought a discouraging end to the quarter. I won't even bother going into the bitter adult (by which I mean student of a nontraditional age who could be my father) whose joy comes in telling us we do everything the wrong way or the high school mentorship students who have stretched the truth, to put it in generous terms, to their teacher regarding how much time they've spent under my tutelage. So much wasted time, so much wasted energy trying to clean it up.

But hey, one of my Blue Jackets package tickets was for tonight's game, so that ought to be a nice break from it all. Well, it would have been if they hadn't gotten pasted 7-2.

Wednesday's got to be better after all this in the first two days of the week...