Being Sick

I'm relatively certain having conferences makes me sick. 

No, seriously (not seriously) this will be my third round of conferences and every time I'm either getting sick, sick, or getting over being sick. 

It sucks because the last thing you want to do when you're sick is the stuff that you need to do when you're conferencing. I don't want to deal with anyone, one-on-one or in the classroom.  I don't want to think about why student writing sucks. I don't want to explain to them in nice terms why it sucks. I don't want to ignore some parts of the sucking just because other parts suck worse  I just want it to stop sucking. 

I don't just want student writing to stop sucking, I want the textbook to stop sucking. I want it to stop making my job harder because all it does is confuse the students. I want to work with the pretty textbook that Judy found the other day. It's pretty. And I think it's more step oriented, which is nice. Not that the textbook I'm using doesn't have steps, it does, just not ones that are that helpful to freshmen.

I would kinda like to stop sucking too. I would like it if I left my classroom feeling like I'd really done a good job that day and not botched it somehow. I would like a feeling of confidence. Something that tells me that I'm really teaching this in a way that students will understand.   

But really, how does the sick me really vary that much from healthy me?