For the past three or more weeks I have been working with our school leadership team, and specifically one phenomenal English teacher, to write our schools External Review report.  This involved scanning hundreds of documents, writing narratives, and inserting the scanned documentation into the report.  This process has so totally consumed my life that I’ve even begun having nightmares about the report – scanning errors, loss of data, arguing with my coworkers over it, etc.  Because of the amount of work involved, my library has been closed more in the past three weeks than it has been open.  Add collaborating with the English II teacher whose student began their research papers last week into the mix and you can understand that I’ve been stressed to the point of wanting to quit, hole up in my room, and shut out the world.

But as of 6pm last night, the process is FINALLY finished.  I gave my principal the magic thumb drive for him to personally mail to the powers that be.  The drive contains 387 files in 127 folders and includes our 158 page report with a 15 page master list of our documentation. Whew!!

It was so nice going into work today and not having to worry over our ERT documentation.  To top it off, it was a Teacher Workday and I got to spend part of that with other media specialists at an Aiken County Media Educators (ACME) meeting.

Now I can get back to doing things I love – reading, blogging, corresponding with family/friends, and devote more focus & time with our drama club to direct our submission for the Garcia Theatre Project One-Act Play Festival in May.  We’re producing “A Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe.  We’ve (myself and that phenomenal English teacher I mentioned above) had to adapt the story ourselves and we’ve got some awesome ideas on the script/direction and an amazing group of teens committed to giving us their best.  Wish us luck!  Oh, and keep your fingers crossed for us that our ERT documentation is accepted.  Thanks!

Photo Credit: “more energy mas happy” by gezelle on Flickr