This term has been absurd, not just for me, but for my whole faculty. It's Term 3, the last before Year 12 go to exams, thus all teachers of senior classes get overwhelmed with stress, go batshit insane and if you get in their way, it's really your own fault. I made the mistake of getting sick and deciding to be responsible about it and stay home to sleep and phlegm all over my cat and furniture instead of my students. WELL!! Didn't that cause a to-do. Some very terse emails were exchanged. It hasn't been spoken of since.
What was interesting recently was last week I had a brilliant teaching week - 2 days on, 3 days off. Spectacular. I slept so, so much. But it was alarming at the same time, in that I became aware of how awake and alert I was and how completely different that felt to basically the rest of year. I was in an orchestral rehearsal and rather than continually making simple, ridiculous mistakes I was playing really well, really on the ball, listening, watching, everything. I realised that this was the first rehearsal out of about 6 where I had felt like that. I also realised I hadn't felt this awake and alert for a very long time, and started wondering just what kind of a teacher I had been all this time, as well as wondering how much better I could be on my full quota of sleep. I guess I've been so tired recently I've forgotten the fact that I am actually tired, and I only notice when I'm HEINOUSLY tired. I really don't like that this is the kind of teacher I am at the moment, but I don't have a choice until next year. Admittedly, it was a bit of a mistake to take on the orchestral gig (even though I'm loving it), and my uni course has become incredibly demanding this semester, but I sort of have to compromise on how much of myself I'm going to sacrifice for sleep. I've already pretty much annihilated my social life for the year, I need to do something that doesn't involve the confines of my home and cat.
Eleven teaching weeks to go until my year of commuting is over and I can put it all down to experience. I'm a little worried about next year and just how much work there is out there for me (not much at all at this stage) but I'm trying to save that worrying for later and just focus on staying awake and alive until the end of Term 4. It's frustrating, though, to be aware that you are essentially behaving and acting like someone you aren't, or don't want to be, and there's nothing you can really do about it, aside from either taking days off or staying overnight in my staffroom during the week.