Career Change: "Beware the Ides of March"...

...so said a soothsayer to Julius Caesar.  The Ides of March is a day in the Roman calendar which equates to March 15 and also the assassination date of Julius Caesar. I'm not talking about something quite that serious, but the entire month of the March... (ummm... how can I put this politely...) the entire month of March blows! Yes, I must add March to my list of horrible times of the year, which includes a week in October, all of December and January, and the first half of February. I loathe those times for personal reasons, but March is all about professional reasons. 

March is apparently the month when students lose their minds, or so says all the seasoned teachers I know. Why is March so much worse than other months? We can only make inferences about the reason, but it is suspected that because it's a long month with no days off, it's the month between winter and spring break, the weather is starting to get slightly nicer, daylight savings, etc., that students just don't want to be there anymore. Confidentially, we don't want them there either.  As much I love my students, right now if I never saw them again, I'd be fine with that. 

Take a look at what I have to put up with at the moment:

The addition to my message was written by an honors student who actually wrote it on the board in front of me. Somehow he couldn't figure out why I did not find this amusing. And yes, an HONORS student! Right now, frustration levels are pretty high and ability to teach is pretty low. Good times!