Wake me up...when the school year ends

I find myself stuck in the middle of an impossible situation at school this year. It grows increasingly more difficult the further into the year we get, and the level of my stress continues to rise until some days I think I'd be better off running away. Somewhere tropical and warm would fit the bill, along with a personal massage therapist to work the tension out of my neck, along with some of those great tropical drinks with little umbrellas. Lots of little umbrellas.

I service two special ed programs this year. One for kids with learning disabilities and such, and the other is for kids with autism. That is a district program that is housed in our school, and one that is short staffed this year. They went through some major staffing changes last year, and I got sucked in to work in the program half time. Which leaves my other program with me half time. This causes all kinds of issues, because the autism program trumps the special ed program. If someone is out, I get pulled for a full day, as they have to meet a certain amount of staff by law. However, when I get pulled out, it affects a far larger number of students in the regular special ed program. So you can get the gist of the problem here. Green Day's song has become my theme, and I just change the month and hum it when I'm having a particularly horrible day.

Tomorrow we are having a big special ed meeting with the guru's from the SAU office and our entire school staff. We've had smaller meetings as a special ed/teacher team to prepare, and inevitably I keep getting dragged into the middle of heated discussions. It's not a place I like to be, and even though it's not about me, I'm directly in the middle and my stress level is just going through the roof. I would rather go through root canal therapy then attend this meeting tomorrow. So today, after school, I was doing some cleaning. Cleaning is like therapy for me. It calms my nerves and lets me focus my nervous energy into something more productive.So while I am cleaning, my song comes on the radio. And I start singing along with Green Day.

"Wake me up, when October ends"

And I thought, hmm..how fitting. This song is right in line with my mood. And then Dave Matthews comes along singing

"Where are you going? where do you go?
Are you looking for answers to questions under the stars?
If along the way you are growing weary, you can rest with me
Until a brighter day and you're OK"

And I paused again, and thought..ok this is a little weird. And the next song comes on the radio by the GooGoo Dolls.

Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better daysand it was really nice, and then I shut the radio off. I figured it was a sign from someone that I needed to just stop listening to the radio. Maybe tomorrow won't be too bad. Maybe they'll figure something out that makes my life easier. Maybe not. But no matter what, there's always next year to start over.