Really? You're telling me this today?

So, today was my first day back after the semester break. We didn't have classes, it was just a workday for the teachers to get settled in and ready for the new semester. When I headed to school this morning, here is the schedule I had drawn out in my head for what I was going to do today.

1. Finish up the last bit of paperwork that I probably should have completed before I left for break.
2. Clean off the semesters-worth of papers that had accumulated on and around my desk.
3. Check to see if any of the finals for students who missed them had been completed, grade them and put them in the computer.
4. Check my rosters to see if there are any surprises or issues of which I need to be aware.
5. Arrange my room the way I want it to begin the new semester.
6. Plan out what I want to do for the first couple days of class and get any copies sent to the copy center.
7. Catch up with some of my colleagues as I saw them throughout the day.

This would be a pretty busy day, but all-in-all a pretty nice way to ease back into the semester. I felt confident that I could get this done and have a relaxing evening at home in preparation for the students' first day back.

So what really happened today?

1. I worked on getting that last bit of paperwork done.
2. While turning the paperwork in, I was made aware of a scheduling issue in my department.
3. My department head came in and asked for my schedule, hours and number of students (this can't be good).
4. We got an email about the options for next year's calendar and were informed there would be an informal meeting to discuss it at 10 am, so I went to that.
5. I began clearing out all the papers and filling some boxes for recycling.
6. The department came in, told me that I would be losing one of my Algebra 2 classes and would be teaching a repeat freshmen Algebra 1 class instead, and asked what I would need for this new prep. Based on the tweet I sent, this happened at approximately 11:26 am. I will have this class in my room for the first time at 9:03 am tomorrow morning, less than 24 hours later.
7. I finished boxing up papers and trying to organize things.
8. I had a meeting with the ad hoc committee I am on about state assessment incentives. We are hoping that if we provide incentives for students to improve the scores from the practice test to the real test that they will try harder and our scores will go up. I had not anticipated this meeting as I was driving to school today.
9. I did get to check my rosters, which led to a couple discussions with other teachers and a counselor to find out what was going on with a couple of the students.
10. (Seriously? 10, and I haven't even done half of what I planned at the beginning of the day? Crap.) I graded a final that a student came in to take today.
11. I did spend a little time catching up with a few other teachers. Most of this time was let by me asking them for resources to help me get ready for the new class I just found I get to teach.

So, that leaves the important stuff like preparing for my classes that start tomorrow still undone. In fact, as soon as I finish writing this and grab a bight to eat, I'm heading back to the school. So much for this semester starting off nice and easy.