Standardized Testing...Ugh

That alone should be self explanatory. I'm sitting here on day 3 of standardized testing, bored out of my mind. I've been proctoring testing in the special education area. So I've sat and watched 3 students take tests for 3 days. Today, thankfully, is the last day that I have to proctor. It doesn't make sense to me that a teacher who teaches k-12 should proctor test and have a sub for 3 days. It's three days of rehearsal time that is lost. It is also 3 days where they have to pay me and a sub for me. I could be doing productive things in my classroom versus sitting here. There is admittedly time when many of my elementary classes are testing, since grades 3-10 are testing, but I could be working in my classroom. Heaven knows there are plenty of things for me to do there. I can't exactly haul my stuff up to the testing site in order to work on it. Then I have a sub for the whole day because the students are given all day to finish the testing if they need it. Well the first day one student needed about 15 minutes past lunch, yesterday they were all done an hour before lunch but had to stay with me, and today I think they'll all be done before lunch too. That means all afternoon I have nothing I'm supposed to be doing. Tuesday I went home early because there was nothing for me to do. Yesterday I wrote the itinerary for Music Fest and then wandered around with nothing to do. I don't know what I'm going to do today. I might just go home again. The weather is nice and I don't have any work to do that doesn't involve being in my classroom. It would be very awkward for me to show up to my classroom with the sub there. It's not exactly like I could just go in my office and work either. I shouldn't complain but it just seems kinda backwards, but welcome to the education system. I don't know if anything ever really makes sense.
Yesterday the weather was awesome so I went walking and went to the beach. Today the weather is fantastic again. It's sunny and warmish. I guess you could consider 45 degrees warm. This is Alaska after all and it's only April. Sadly though the weather prediction for about the next week is rain, rain, and more rain. At least we've gotten two really nice days.
Just about a week left until I leave for music fest with my band. (All 9 of them). They are coming along well on the music. Next week will be a big push to run through the pieces and fine tune some things. We have one piece that we haven't run completely through yet and I'm a little nervous, but I'm sure it'll be fine. I have a good group of musicians. We're performing Dona Nobis Pacem, Thundercrest, and Symphonic Overture for Music Fest. I don't know that I've ever performed the first two, but Symphonic Overture I played at my community college. It's completely possible for us to do it. I'm taking it a little under tempo because 152 beats per minute is a little fast, we're taking it at about 130-140 bpm at the opening. It works. It sounds pretty good. We'll see how it goes. We'll go out there and do our best. That's all I can expect.