I can always tell when I shift into my "need more time to read and figure out what to do with the information" mode.
The bag of dark chocolates in my desk starts emptying. It’s not me, mind you. I have no conscious recollection of grabbing, unwrapping, and sticking in my mouth the hundreds of pieces of sweet, bitter chocolate squares that seem to disappear during the day.
After sharing, showing, and collaborating with teachers and students the past couple of months, this week has been quiet. Grades and comments are due, and teachers, understandably, don’t have me on their minds.
So I am catching up on my reading, and when I do that, I eat chocolate.
This morning, for example, I skimmed DyDan’s blog to discover Patrick had a new post I hadn’t read yet. Good stuff about motivation and world domination.
But there was also a new read, and what a powerful voice she has: I am bound by law to have a sugar-bombed beignet and chicory coffee on Sunday morning at the Cafe Du Monde this weekend…" And that’s her writing about food. Wait until you hear her voice on teaching and homework….and she mentions Tom whom I read and follow. Gotta go there now….
More chocolate.
That post sent me to the ASCD website, where various bloggers summarize the recent conference…and link to things like "what the best teachers know and do." Save to read later.
WHY didn’t I think about going there? I wonder, as I take another piece of chocolate from the bag.
My Google Reader still open, I see Kim Cofino has shared a post–Arrgghhh, a new blogger, at least for me. Do I click and add yet another read? Skip it? No, Ok, ok, I say to myself, as I unwrap what I determine will be the last piece of chocolate this morning and read more on the McKinsey report and Finnish teachers.
My mind is also thinking back to the SOS podcast I listened to this morning, where I bumped into Sheryl….which reminds me, I gotta call Hiram to check on the PLP progress…..just one more piece of that blasted chocolate.

Something tells me I need to get back in the classroom or switch to apples.

Image: ‘Fairtrade chocolate pieces‘
www.flickr.com/photos/60364452@N00/903391978