I can’t possibly have another day that I have to go to work this week. It must be Friday by now.

This has been one of the longest weeks in recent memory. I have been buried under a pile of paperwork and every time I thought that it was nearly done, I found more. It was as if the papers were cloning themselves to make the pile stay the same size.

This was progress report week. I’ve probably talked about having to do these before, as they appear three times a year and always take ages to complete. Basically they are individual narratives about each individual goal that the kids on my caseload have on their educational plans. Most kids have at least three (some have four) goals. I have 32 kids on my caseload.

You do the math.

All I know is that I’ve been writing these things for days and days and days.

I finally finished the last one this afternoon, got them copied and sent them to the special ed office.

Then I had to sit down and write an ed plan for the kid I had a meeting for this morning.

Paperwork is going to make my head explode.

There was something a bit humorous regarding paperwork yesterday.

We had a half-day to have teacher meetings, and mine was with the entire department. Well twice within the last two months the Ice Queen has sent a blanket memo to all the members of the special ed department and all of our principals yelling at everyone because of late paperwork. We were told "The punishment will be far worse than the cure."

My paperwork is never ever late, and neither is Bets’. As a matter of fact we generally have our paperwork in the mail on the same day as our meeting.

So after the second memo Bets sent a return e-mail saying that if her paperwork was late then she wanted to be told. So she got a response telling her that it wasn’t us, and that the people who were chronically late knew who they were.

Since then we’ve also gotten a call from her when she realized that our paperwork was in on the same day as the meeting.

So at our meeting yesterday we were given "certificates of appreciation" for our efficiency. It was kind of embarrassing, actually. We were also exempted from having to use a new form at our meetings because our paperwork is done so quickly. The form was sort of a summary of the meeting to hand the parents if they’re going to have to wait for the IEP.

She actually told the whole staff that we didn’t have to do the form but that they all did.

I guess recognition is good, but I felt a bit like a brown-nose.

I also had a wild night at rehearsal Tuesday night.

Our director was sick and couldn’t make it, so she e-mailed me at the last minute to ask me to use the rehearsal to work on choreography.

I wasn’t prepared for that. And my foot is still swollen and twingy. It doesn’t hurt the way that it did, but it’s still not right.

So I spent three hours redesigning moves that weren’t working because of tempo changes, teaching and reviewing and drilling, drilling , drilling.

I was one worn out terpsichorean by the end of the night!

But it was a really productive evening. The changes seem to work, and the chorus didn’t have a tough time learning them, which is generally a sign that the moves are good. The hard art is to make sure that the moves don’t interfere with the tempo or with our ability to sing.

It’s not easy to keep it simple but interesting.

Of course, once we have our retreat our coach might well decide to toss a ton of it out. But that’s showbiz!

So I am totally looking forward to the end of the day tomorrow. Yes I have more paperwork to do, but it’s not a mountain. I can get it done without freaking out.

We also have to celebrate Matilda’s birthday (she’s going to be TEN!!) this Saturday, so that will be fun.

Heck, after this week staying home and staring at my toenails would be fun!