Help! The stress of being prepared and not ready

I should have know this would happen. Have you ever prepared for something, but when the actual time comes to pass you are not as ready as you had hoped? Maybe you prepared for a test that was much harder than you expected, maybe you prepared for marriage, or children, or a new job and it was much harder than you expected. As I have mention in previous posts the school I teach at, North Valley Academy, is transitioning to a mastery based model of education and guess what, yesterday was registration. Yesterday was the first day that the theory of this model met a little bit of reality. Oh my, it was intense. I hope it was not as intense for parents as it was for me. I have teamed up with a co-worker and we are doing the scheduling for the upper grades. We have worked to build this wonderful schedule, set up electives, and make templates for parents and students to follow. The first parent to sign up was thankfully the most patient parent, because it took us over 20 minutes to sign the students up. It should no way take that long to schedule students.  Oh the stress was so intense (most of the stress was probably just in my own head), but the parent was patient and understanding, but also caught on quickly. I felt that the scheduling table quickly had a line backed up at registration, but we worked and became quicker at the scheduling. Looking back now I wish we had more students come in for registration and I hope that registration today is better attended. The joy, the highlight, that I walked away with when I left the school last night was that parents who did not know how the system was going to work seemed to walk away excited about their student's education for the upcoming year. We are semester based and each semester a student completes six classes plus has a homeroom or advisory. The neat part with this system is that students will focus on two, three, or four classes at a time and work at a faster rate going more in-depth and finish those courses about half-way through the semester. After finishing those courses a student will begin on the next set of assigned courses. This allows students to truly focus on courses and hopefully not be spread too thin in their learning. Students will have the opportunity to master the content and have a true understanding of the course. No matter how much planning you do you cannot prepare for the crazy twists and turns that reality throws your way. I guess I have to work at getting better at just rolling with punches and staying positive. I better it would have been better if I had brought my Mountain Dew to the registration table instead of leaving it in my classroom. Mountain Dew makes everything better! Hoping for more parents and students to come and register today!