Four

"Is that a lot of work for you?"

Is my pause perceptible?  It's not as if everything I have to do and juggle and reconfigure to fit four new students into into my more-or-less program flashed before my eyes. Instead I'm stuck mid-cringe, wedged between, "You have no idea what I do," and, "I have no idea how I'm going to do it." 

It is typical to have a new kid or two in January, at the more-or-less beginning of the semester. I know better to assume my schedule is fixed. But four? FOUR? I don't even have the desks. Let alone an all-beginner class to slip them into (none of them speak English) for even one of their eight yet-to-be-filled schedule blocks.  Wait, times four? Thirty-two. Thirty-two classes to schedule, though twelve or sixteen of them will be with me. With me in a room six or eight or twelve other kids who are doing two or three other things: nobody else will be starting at Lesson One.  Here's where my I'll-think-about-it-later starts to kick in, and oh, how later will be full of fodder.

At least I have books now, at least I have some software, at least I have some help on alternate days. At least I started to file and organize in December-- really. At least I have a day off before the new normal makes its debut. It will not be impossible, probably. But yes, my dear colleague, it's gonna be work.