Yesterday, NFL players reported (or did not report) to training camp, officially beginning the countdown toward the beginning of the season. And just as their summer vacation has ended, mine is quickly coming to a close.

One week from today, I report at 0800 to Johnnie Cochran Middle School, eat the free breakfast, say hi to some friends, and then begin the daunting task of staying awake through three weeks of professional development (PD). Thus far in my short teaching career, the breakdown of such PD has been about 80% sitting passively in boring meetings / 20% useful time working in my classroom. Not only that but, this year we’re getting close to twenty new teachers at our school (about a 25% turnover) so I’ve got a feeling that a majority of the time will be time spent orienting these new folks to the school, yet we’ll just have to see.

Finally, in the background I’ve got a recording of local classical radio station KUSC’s weekly Modern Times program. Basically, an amalgamation of classical music composed and recorded in the past 75 years, the program only comes on once per week, and since KUSC streams their radio station (as now most radio stations do), I’ve been using Replay AV to record it directly to my PC for later playback. A very cool piece of software, especially if you listen to internet radio at all.

Now I’d best be going. I’ve got a whole week to enjoy before cynicism, despair, frustration, school meetings begin.