Good class, bad class

I had a terrible, upsetting weekend and I am still emotionally wound up about it. Such a waste; I didn't get all my grading or class prep done because I was obsessively reading up on some nasty, fucked up shit. And I lost it a little bit in one class coming off way stronger and angrier than I had intended, and I worry my students are going to think I am mad at them instead of the topic. And, I am a little bit mad at some of them. In my head, I've blown this up to the assumption that I will get nasty, angry emails about it and other confrontations with my students and they will go talk to my boss. I hope this isn't so, and I just need to let go of everything and move on, but I keep mentally circling the same damn things.

My other class today went great. I'm not sure they are ready, intellectually or writing-wise, to go from our discussion to an essay without more help, and I haven't planned those brainstorming/pre-writing steps into our classes for this sequence, oops, but we had a great discussion in which I felt they thought deeply about the topic and made a lot of connections and it was an interesting, intellectually satisfying discussion for me as well. I think I will get terrible papers, because, as I have mentioned, I scaffolded in only some prewriting stuff on the syllabus and they have needed more over this semester, but, oh well. If they are improving in their writing skills and ability to think autonomously, they will be able to handle this essay on their own, and if not, at least I've been having fun helping them with critical thinking during class.

I suppose that now I've got to go frantically grade things for my other class, which I hope will provide neither frustration or drama. I'm probably asking for too much there. At least the grading can get my mind of everything else, right?