I have to go back tomorrow. Back to a daily schedule where I have to drag myself out of bed by 6 am, 6:15 if I really want to push the envelope, to get to school on time. Or close to on time where I might have a few minutes to hang up my coat and empty my bag before I have a student in my face. If I don't, I have 10 minutes of administrivia in homeroom before I have to jump into my first class, which starts just before 8 am. Good God help me. I have a senior homeroom this year.
I'm not complaining, just trying to mentally get myself ready to go back. I love my job most days, and this is Year #21 of my career. I spent two days, from 10 am until 6pm, cleaning and unpacking my stuff. And I'm so sore from moving stuff, including pushing the massive desk to the back of the room.
My new home, room 131. All clean and sparkly.
View from my desk. Note the time, and it's not am. I still have to clean the boards and wash all the tables down.
Here are the 500 Greek textbooks I had to empty out of the closet before I could tackle my own stuff.
Since I had to move my classroom at the end of last year, it took me more time to set up for this year since my entire academic life was in boxes piled at the back of the room. The previous occupant of the room retired over the summer, but left all the textbooks she used in the closet. It's the only closet in the room, so of course I had to empty it out if I wanted a place to hang my coat or store stuff. I think teaching is the strangest profession sometimes--in an attempt to "send a message" to the administration, people do things that they think will piss off the higher ups. However, all they do is piss off their supposed colleagues because who got stuck cleaning a really gross room? Who got stuck unloading 300 books on Plato and 200 books on Greek reading and grammar? Who got stuck with a broken chair and a really grimy desk with a lovely carving of a penis and testicles in the top drawer? ME, that's who. Do you really think any administrators notice? Probably not.
I want to know how someone had enough time to carve an anatomically correct penis and testicles in a metal drawer and not be noticed. They aren't the "best and the brightest" for nothing.
Ok, let me put my soap box back in the closet now that there's room since Plato moved out.
My new real estate is actually nice since for the first time in 6 years, I'll be neighbors with teachers who also teach Spanish and I can even eat lunch with them! We can actually talk to each other about what we're doing. We were scattered all over the building before and it was hard to get together. Only downer is that there are no white boards, just black chalk boards. I have tons of colored chalk to keep it messy and interesting. One major plus is that, also for the first time in 6 years, I have a place to lock things up! No more hiding things under furniture or lugging it all with me. I have an actual key to the closet, and it works! The file cabinet has a key that turns, but the lock doesn't work. So sad that I'm excited by the prospect of having at least one place to lock things, but I guess it's the small things in life we often overlook. Either that, or people in other professions don't have to put up with this bullshit.
I've gotten most of my paper stuff organized, but will probably have to go to Staples to copy it. Tomorrow there will be lines and tension at all the copiers, assuming they are working. I have a vague memory of last year when there was only one functioning copier in the entire building during opening week. If you want to see stress, jump in the line of teachers waiting to copy what they need for the first day of class. It can be downright vicious, and God help the newbie who doesn't know the pecking order. Good times, good times.
No comments:
Post a Comment