Being a Teacher in the Summer

Yuck! Why do I still feel like I have so much work to do? I still have requirements for the program I am in and it is my summer goal to plan so much that I can avoid the nightly crunch (and spare my boy the nightly bitchiness) by having all unit plans done before school starts and my first unit objectives written. The days are ticking away and I am waiting to be inspired to complete these tasks. Then, it starts happening. Thoughts of my 25 students and the hell I was going through just four weeks ago keep into my mind and I am physically repulsed by the idea of doing anything teacher-related. I guess this is the burn-out that teachers in my situation feel. Your first year in a DCPS school can take such a toll on you as a person that you avoid your job like the MRSA staph virus. It's a double-edged sword too because the reason my first year took such a toll on me is that actually deeply cared the whole time about what I was doing and how my students were doing. It is a sick thing that the teachers who care the most about and work the hardest at "closing the gap" in the District are the ones who end up near dead come summer. Near dead was a good physical description of the state of my health with simultaneous ear and sinus infections and a chronic cough that had gone on for about 10 weeks.
Now that I have been back in D.C. for almost two weeks, I must admit that the physical condition of my apartment is the real-estate equivalence to near death. The boy tries his hardest and does a great job keeping things "clean", but living in a studio with two people, a dog, and only one usable closet its the "mess" that gets us. I am the kind of person who needs something to motivate me to get things done so I am creating some self motivation by posting messy "before" pictures of my apartment. After I clean, I will take some after photos. If you start to notice too many days passing before my "after" photos are posted, please call me on it. Try inviting yourself over so I have to clean (Ms. Mindless).