feeling motivated?

I'm having a hard time getting motivated. I need to start using To Do Lists or some form of task management. It's not as if I don't have work to do, goals, and need for self-improvement. Being a lump on a log floating down a river is just easier some days.

I've lessened the workload for my students in my classes in the hope that might motivate them. I've gotten feedback that I don't give them enough time to finish their activities. I'm just paranoid of free time in the hands of unruly seventh graders-- it's the stuff nightmares are made of. So, it's kind of working. And, I'm getting my centers ready, which I'm UBER excited about. They're creative and exciting-- interactive and outside the box. For example, I've collected loads of cartoons and I'm going to have the kids locate the figurative language: pun, personification, alliteration, etc. in them. Then, they are to design their own. I also have ones with maps and art. I have a passport from the Holocaust museum and some other material. Then, there's a matching game with the elements of story and a grouping game with parts of speech. And, today I'm putting together one with settings, characters, and plot (pictures from magazines and newspapers)that they write a story about. They're what school should be like but can't be when you have 28 children who don't know classroom protocol.

Maybe it's the weather. Cold and gray, dreary and listless.

But, I have had some manufactured sunshine: I received my interlinear Bibles from Cosy. I got in touch with N with whom I hadn't talked with since before Christmas. Had carrot soup with friends. I've had two solid runs. I signed up for a writing class for the next six weeks on Wednesdays 7-9pm.

Today's resolutions: get my grades entered and to the secretary. Finish two centers. Get some exercise or go to a movie. Clean the house.