So far, I am surviving

Well, a bit closer to a full week at school and I'm still alive. Four days this time (we get a lovely, wonderful 4 day Labor Day weekend) and I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. I'm still very much liking my AP kids (though they were weirdly quiet today, odd for a bunch of 16 year olds) and my American Lit kids are still the more difficult of the lot. Entertaining/forehead-slapping aspects from this week:

• Trying to convince a 16 year old boy that, yes, you do need to write this down because no, you probably won't remember it tomorrow (he didn't write it down and didn't remember it today).
• Having two students walk into my 5th hour American Lit class BLATANTLY reading the Spark Notes for The Scarlet Letter and standing three feet from me. Do you REALLY think I don't notice? I gave the entire class a stern talking to, proceeded to give a quiz where many of them (including the Spark Noters) did phenomenally bad. Let this be warning that Spark Notes will not save your ass in my class. You need to read. And read closely.
• Another student in my 5th hour class comes in wearing an out of dress code hoodie. I should have immediately written him up. Since we're just at the start of school, I told him to lose the hoodie or I'd write him up. Five minutes later I look over and he's still wearing the hoodie. So, I write him up, send him to the office and he has a detention. Should have just taken it off when I first asked. Moron.
• I think my contract might finally be sorted. Crossed fingers. I don't want to say much more till I sign it and see the next paycheck. I'm afraid I'll jinx it (yeah, yeah, superstition and Catholicism aren't supposed to go hand in hand. Weirdly, they do).

So, that's been this week so far. One more day...