WANTED: A freak'n break!

For any of you that have a teacher friend, you may know that getting a new student is a stressful thing. You need to relabel everything in the classroom, quickly level the student in all of the subject areas, catch them up to where you are in the curriculum, help them make new friends, and make sure they learn all of the stuff that you taught the previous 5 months so they are ready for the end of the year tests. OH, and if they fail, it's YOUR fault. It's another paper to grade, another kid to make them feel special, another parent to please, etc... I could go on and on.

I'm not sure what's been happening lately in my community, but the fourth grade has gotten 4 new students in the last month. We got like 4 TOTAL last year. Earlier this week, I heard that fourth grade was getting ANOTHER student this week. I figured, "Oh, it won't be me, I just got a new student the week before last... and there are 5 teachers on our team."

WELL... I'm sitting in the "Teacher's Lounge" (which is really only dividers in the middle of a hallway) today during lunch and the PE teacher comes over to my table and exclaims, "I just met YOUR new student and BOY is he INTERESTING!"

Umm, MY new student???

So I'm up to number 26... in a special education classroom... where several of my 4th graders are reading on a 1st/2nd grade level...

OKAY, I won't freak out. Adding my last student wasn't too bad, although the thought of doing it all over again just a week later made me sick to my stomach. We had a specialty class at the end of the day, so I busily walked around the room relabeling everything. I picked up new textbooks, claimed the LAST desk from the hallway, and was feeling pretty good about myself.

One thing that you need to know about me if you don't already know about me is that I seriously have OCD issues. I can't leave my classroom at the end of the day until the room is immaculate. I'm usually here cleaning for the first 15-20 minutes after the last bell rings. My classroom is the ONLY one in the fourth grade (probably in the whole school) where all of the desks are at the same height and are matching. I just can't handle it if they aren't. I really can't.

No worries though, the desk in the hallway (that matches) was just a little too short.. the custodian can make it taller, right? I try to explain to the custodian, who unfortunately is still learning English, my situation. He tries to heighten the desk. It is BROKEN. He canNOT make it taller. He goes to the other end of the school to get another desk. He says to me, "ALL is left. No more."

It doesn't match.

I broke into tears right there.

I can't handle this right now.

...the cause of my anguish