Duck, Duck....

 At least once a year (and often twice), I write about flip flop day, a day that has nothing to do with footwear and everything to do with changing priorities. Typically, my end of summer flip flop day, in which I take off my writer hat and put on my educator hat, comes during the first week in August. This year, I took a staycation last week (that's another post entirely), saving the official flip flop for this week. 

This afternoon, partway through today's appointed planning and preparation, it occurred to me that I felt as though I was in the deep end of the pool as I tried to turn all the big picture "great ideas" I had in May into detailed assignments for the coming semester. While that analogy might not have given me much comfort, it did give me the topic for today's post (hey, better late than never!), so I went in search of a picture to accompany it.

Nothing could be more on-the-nose than the one above. Like the ducks, the ideas that seemed so fun and creative last spring now sit at the edge of my to-do list, waiting for me to take them from concept to fully realized activity. Of the many ducks ready to jump into the water, some will mysteriously sink, some will get halfway across the pool, and some will be blown off course by bigger and more essential ducks. Others will stay right where they are, lined up along the perimeter of the pool, waiting for me to find them a place in the syllabus. A lucky few will make it all the way across the water, where they will wait to see if they make the cut for next year's syllabus.

These brightly colored plastic waterfowl look so innocent, so light, so endearing. But don't let them fool you.

They're a lot of work.

Still, they are cute and tempting, promising to inject color and interest into the grayest corners of my curriculum, and so I will spend the next two weeks bemoaning the quandary of these quackers.

So many ducks, so little time.