Taking it Sitting Down

I dunno what is wrong with me lately. I'm so sick these past couple of days. I can't remember the last time I stood all day to teach. I keep taking advantage and giving the girls writing or their history project groups so that I can sit down.
Today was no different.
In eighth grade I started off the day teaching history. I could tell the girls were bored. I know that it's a dumb aim, but usually I can make it interesting. Today it took a while before I could get the girls into it.
Once they got into it it was fun though. We spoke about cowboys and cattle drives. The girls were telling me everything they knew about the wild west, and that produced a couple of funny comments and laughs.
After history I gave them time to revise the first part of their Letters to Self. They were having a hard time doing that because they all decided that they did an amazing job to begin with. Yeah right.
T.B.N. does not belong in an 8th grade. She still hasn't finished her first part when the girls are already up to revising their first and second. I dunno what I'm gonna do with her.
T.G. has been getting on my nerves lately. She is a little bit of a baby. Yesterday, she had one of the damaged sweatshirts and she made such a huge fuss about it. Today, the first thing she wanted to know was if I already had new ones for her. Then she needed to know why they couldn't come any sooner than two weeks from now. AGH!
During recess I had an interesting conversation with my co. She and I both feel very overshadowed by the 7th grade Hebrew co. We feel that we can't really do anything with the seventh grade because she is always mixing in. My co said she wished that the Hebrew teacher would just stay in the Hebrew dept. and leave us alone.
We have a meeting with the principal next week Wednesday to discuss some extra-curricular things for the 7th grade. We want to make sure that we get our way, that we get what we believe is best for the class, and not just what the Hebrew co wants.
Problem is, whatever we do end up doing, we won't be recognized for it. It'll be the Hebrew co getting the credit. Oh well.
Seventh grade worked on comparing and contrasting in essays while I supervised sitting down. they didn't do too a bad job either. Of course, B.B. and S.S. and some others did terrible jobs, most of the girls were pretty on track.
I gave them independent reading while I marked them, and then I let them get into groups.
I will never put C.S.S. and C.K. in the same group again. They are fooling around and letting the other girls do all the work instead of them. I'm so not impressed.
On other days I see what they're doing, but I know that E.L. and M.B. are working and while they aren't happy doing all the work, at least they have each other.
Today, E.L. was absent and M.B. was left doing all the work herself. She handed in the summary the group was supposed to do and it didn't include everything I wanted, so I asked her to just add one more paragraph.
She left the class crying, and I spoke to her after school to tell her that there was a reason I gave a separate mark to the group and to the individual girls. I told her to go home and not worry about the summary, that I would give her time to do it in class, and I would speak to the other girls as well.
I remember having this in one class last year too. I hope this works out better though.