first good day in, what, 3 months?

In the whole semester, I have yet to have a real honest to goodness good day. each one has trudged with its various ups and downs. And, as time's passed, mostly downs. The school i'm at has this poisonous negativity pervading it, and there's not too much that's constructive it seems to me.

Somehow, despite the fact that one of my students refuses (and therefore will not be able to present his project until he does this) to take the reading growth test and swore in my classroom (suddenly kids are swearing, what's with this?) ("I hate this fucking class" was the phrase, I believe), I suddenly had a huge smile on my face come last period. It's not because we had an assembly (I was a little miffed about that), and also not because it was the last period of the day. Rather, I had a sincerely good time teaching reciprocal teaching (a strategy that is best described as a literature circle for all subjects), and enjoyed my third period class immensely when they practiced it. It really showed that they knew what to do (even my students who are ESL caught on, though I had one fracaso (failure) with one kid who had no clue). And that gives me hope that their last project that they'll be working on over the weekend will be fine, as long as they're (gulp) responsible. But, I told them that there's no way they're getting any extensions...it's due the day they get back from break si o si (yes or yes...no other option!).

So, in short, I had a good day today. I was all smiles, and very into my activator (suffixes...mmm, love 'em!). So, I felt good. Tomorrow's the day before vacation...it's time to break out the donuts and juice, and relax.