Coffee + TrimSpa + Drama =

Elevated heart rate.

Dizziness.

Dehydration.

Not being hungry, which leads to not eating, which leads to headache and vague feelings of nausea.

Feelings of mild to moderate panic.

Inability to concentrate.

Talking very fast.

Inability to take a restful nap when given the opportunity.

Today I had a training for a new parent-notification system our school is piloting. When my administrator came in the week before the break to tell me about it, he said, "we're taking care of your sub." Of course, in retrospect I see that he meant "the district will be paying for your sub; it won't be coming out of your allotment of sick/personal days," but I thought he meant he would also be notifying Denise, the woman in charge of subs at our school, to enter my absence in the automated system.

We were carpooling to the training today, and it didn't begin until 8, so I was in my room working until the first bell rang at 7. When no one had shown up at my classroom yet, I went to see Denise to see what was the matter. She was probably not the happiest woman in the world when I told her what the matter was; she was already in the process of tracking down 3 first-hour subs for other people. I'm actually pretty resigned to the kind of mistakes that just mess things up for me, but I really, really hate making the kind of mistakes that put other people out or call attention to the fact that I did something dumb. I apologized profusely (probably too much so), and went back to my room to get the kiddos started on their posters. Finally, about 10 minutes before I had to leave, a teacher from down the hall came in to take over for me.

The training was interesting, if impractical for a non-administrator like me. The system the district is buying is amazing. Without gushing about it too much, if I was the principal of the school and I needed to send a series of recorded messages to students' parents, I would be doing a little dance right now because it is so easy. I am, however, just the English teacher of 160 students and will have no access or rights to the autodialler and therefore won't be able to use it, so the training was an interesting, interactive, hands-on waste of time (and drama). The day wasn't a total loss: I did make the internet call me on the telephone, so that was actually pretty cool.

When the training ended, I raced back across town to school so I could get there before my after-lunch class only to find out that after 3 class periods of other teachers covering my class on their preps, a sub had finally arrived just in time for my prep, just before lunch, so I might as well let him do something and get paid for it. That part actually turned out for the best, even though I just wound up feeling guilty, rather than relieved or pleasantly surprised, at my afternoon off, but tomorrow is the last day of the quarter and I have about 20 more research projects to grade. That was about when I realized I hadn't eaten anything but toast and stimulants for breakfast and needed to eat if I wasn't going to feel sick all afternoon.

Oh, and because I learned my lesson today, I've already put in for the three days I'll be out for even more training fun in two weeks. Nobody can say I don't have a learning curve!