Seven Hours Before the Show

The first day of school starts in seven hours. How long was I awake before I took a sleeping pill? Seven hours. How long ago was that? Seven hours.

I hope this means we're going into a jackpot of a school year.

I spent Wednesday through Friday of last week sorting out my room and going to meetings. Miraculously, we got the gift cards for supplies again - probably the last year for that. All supplies have to come out of the cards now, though. Like, my LCD projector has no mount, and long have I wanted a solution that doesn't involve a huge barricade of a TV cart in the center of the room, clearing out 10 student desks in its path, and having those students squish against the walls onto the floor - but that's now firmly outside of the realm of "maybe this year!" unless I buy it. And install it.

Which I would, but I was too busy buying a comfortable chair and a pedestal fan. My room gets pretty manky, what with 200ish 14/15-year-olds and no fresh air or even a cross-current. And the chair? ($47 with district contract price!) It, I just wanted. The hard plastic chair with three out of four wheels in operation needed to go. (I'm sure we'll need it for a student, anyway.)

If an LCD projector sounds pretty la-de-da, keep in mind that, what with the state education budget's epic fail, we're not supposed to make photocopies this year. No worksheets, handouts, and so on unless it's absolutely unavoidable. Everything should be written on the board or, ideally, projected. I'm cool with that, projection problems aside, although the kids won't be used to it at all. Cue the whining.

What else?

In June, I told myself not to go all summer without post-processing the kids' photos for this year's wall. Not to do it at the last minute when it will be a botched job and more stress.

Heh. Who was up late last week, using the magnetic lasso in Photoshop? Paying for same-day processing? The same person who didn't even finish that batch and has another 30 photos to put up tomorrow before school.

Meanwhile, I've never read My Ántonia, but it's just sitting in the department closet and someone should teach it. I think it may be me. Besides, I lost Mockingbird - it has been reassigned as an 11th grade novel, and I'll be durned if I teach Lord of the Flies again for awhile. I'm sick of never being able to convince them that Piggy isn't stupid. (Fat = stupid, right?) The kids, who are barely paying attention as it is, are always too happy when everyone gangs up on Piggy. It's not a pretty experience, and I'm just one person, and too fat to be credibly myself, right?

The department also has seventy copies of Jurassic Park. No, I don't know why. No one knows who ordered them. They've probably been there for ages. Any teaching ideas? (Keeping in mind that everyone will have seen the movie.)

We went to our vet's anniversary open house yesterday. It was really neat; we got to see the whole facility, which was clean as a whistle, state-of-the-art, and pretty darn charming all around. ("It's not the size of the critter in the fight, but the size of the fight in the critter" - slogan on one of the walls.) We checked out the big picture window in place for the amusement of boarding cats, the "exotic" boarding room (currently occupied by a turtle), and overlooked with determination that the MANY plates of sandwiches, cookies, veggies, etc. were all on examining tables. (Which, to be fair, are thousands of times cleaner than most places we eat.)

They gave us leis as we entered, and I showed Mike where Arthur, Comet, and Susan have all been examined. Didn't get to see the wee scale they use to weigh our little ones, but Mike enjoyed it all nonetheless. We felt more like we were visiting our pediatrician than our vets. Can't recommend them enough - the whole staff is made up of patient, knowledgeable, friendly, professional, cheerful people.

(I need to go wash my hair... to be continued.)

Okay, back. I've gotten all off-topic here.

So, I worked late on Friday, partially because of CONVERSATIONS. I've been sent an Advance Reading Copy of a HarperCollins book about boundaries to review (I'll find the link sometime later if anyone wants to hop on their ARC/review train), and perhaps it will help me control not getting interrupted as much. But I doubt it. But that's another story.

But, working late had its advantages. I got to see my starting roster for Monday. (Keeping in mind that kids move around a LOT for the first month or two, and we were still enrolling 100 more students a day on Monday. And, strangely, some parents don't bring their kids to be registered until the first day of school.)

I saw the numbers for my first period and was ready to walk away and learn to deal blackjack. Blackjack, where it's all about 21, not 41, as in forty-one students enrolled in that class so far. FORTY-ONE STUDENTS. In a regular class. On the FIRST DAY.

Took a deep breath and looked at second period. Thirty-eight students. Not as bad, but... wait, this is how they get you. It's like yesterday, in the car, when Mike noticed the $3.75/gal petrol and said that "at least it's getting back down to a reasonable number." Granted, to an Australian, that is a reasonable number, but it's bad when $3.75 looks good just because we've seen $4.25.

And so, it's bad when 38 students on a roster looks good. (Yes, I still only have 33 desks.) And that's just the first day, before the late arrivals descend.

So I was horsie-style-eye-rolling-terrified to look at the classes for the rest of the day. I have Honors from then on out (yes, I am SO EXCITED), and - traditionally - my Honors classes have always been the largest of all. And of course those kids come every day.

Twenty-two kids. 22. TWENTY-TWO!

Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!

That's my third period. And that's the spot on my jeans where I wet my pants in glee.

The interesting question is, "Will it last?" Usually not more than a handful of kids get bumped up to Honors. Another handful transfer in later. Twenty-two. Twenty-two kids who are better behaved and more motivated. I am fanning myself even as I type.

It gets better. Well, no, not better than TWENTY-TWO!, but the other classes are 25 and 30. Thirty in an Honors class, and the last period of the day (gag, save us), is not easy, but it's better than 41. (Just like that $3.75 gas.)

So I'm starting with 156 this year, not 200+. I swoon. It is a better year already. (What kind of shoe do you think will now drop?)

I zipped home and logged into the rarely used district testing database, where I discovered that - in addition to past test scores - I can see all of these kids' schedules for this year. I then spent the rest of Friday evening making a spreadsheet, making sure my team is "pure" (that all the kids in my classes have the same science teacher and one of two specific math teachers), and logging who has band, who has dance, who is in ROTC, etc. I also entered birthdays, because I'm tired of worrying over who doesn't celebrate and might be offended. (I'll make a quick disclaimer at the start of the year that anyone who doesn't want to be recognized can just let me know - no problem.)

The short of it being, I'm armed with data. I'm almost ready. The lack of worksheets/handouts is throwing some of my lesson plans for a loop, but I'll work it out.

This weekend we finally took the car in to see about the vibration that I've been feeling ever since Tonopah, but that Mike only recently noticed. Lest you think this was me coming around to my responsibilities after almost two months, no. It was the FLAP-FLAP-FLAP noise as we drove down the 215 that spurred this decision.

A long string of rubber had come off the front tire. Where, upon further inspection, we discovered that the insides of the tires were pretty bald. The outsides? Not so bad. Oh. Oops. Um, wheel alignment, anyone?

We hobbled back to the closest place, Wal-Mart, a place I'd sworn two days before to NEVER return to again (except for hamster food, as still no one else carries a good dwarf mix). You don't even want to know how dicked around I've been by them this past week. It's so over between us.

I hate them anyway, most of the clientele is depressing (it's the only place where I see trashy people in our neighbourhood), it's always full of little kids at midnight (please file under "What's Wrong with the World"), and we do have other options here. And usually I do avoid WM, but we'd had to buy a cable modem a few weeks ago (because Cox didn't know what they were doing), and the FUN ensued last week when we tried to return it in under an hour. I can't even talk about it - the customer service was SO BAD. It was an extended-play repeat of two days before that, when I went in to buy some pants that were on sale, pants that the fitting room department "can't be bothered to mark down" (their and the manager's words), and again, I can't even talk about it.

And then, once we got the modem returned, I tried to buy the fan with my sales tax-free district card. Unlike other major retailers, though, Wal-Mart makes you go to customer service with your sales tax stuff before you shop. We found that out in the checkout lane. Fine, but we couldn't scale the Cliffs of Ineptitude for another hour, though, so we walked out. Went to Home Depot across the parking lot. Got a better fan and extraordinary service from the three people we talked to. Win-win.

Anyway, so there we were, back at Wal-Mart again, with a tire showing bits of metal. Pft.

Except, wait, no, apparently Wal-Mart doesn't sell tires that will fit a Ford Focus. Even though it seems like everyone who isn't driving an SUV is driving a Focus or a PT Cruiser, but whatever.

The guy sent us across the lot to Sam's Club, where we would've bought a membership just to get this sorted out without having to put on the spare and spend all of the next day at Discount Tire, home of the five hour wait. Except the kid at SC's garage didn't understand for ages what we wanted (new tires), and once he did, he just glanced at the car and said, no, he didn't have any, but we could order them online.

That's when we both remembered that a place called "Tire Works" had opened on the next street over. So, we gingerly drove, hazard lights on, and only a few people sat angrily on our bumper then whipped around and cut us off. To teach us a lesson about driving in the right lane with hazard lights blinking, I guess. (ZOMG PEOPLE ARE SO MEAN SELFISH STUPID STOP STOP STOP CAN"T TAKE IT OKAY BETTER NOW KTHXBYE.)

Tire Works was amazing. Incredibly friendly and involved, very clean, great waiting area - although we skipped across the lot to the Starbucks Ultra Lounge (don't ask) for fraps with caramel, and then listened to a Dillards employee give interviews.

(Clue to Dillards guy: maybe stand up and shake someone's hand when they arrive for their interview? Or at least perfunctorily bob up from your bored little cappuccino reverie at the table? The table where everyone can listen to this poor person sweat out your textbook questions? Then again, maybe I'm just cross because the person he seemed to end up hiring for the job of assistant store manager kept saying, "Me and her do all the...," "Me and her are in charge of..." I guess it questions the importance of my own job, if people who can't use pronouns will still get hired into managerial positions. Then again, assistant manager.)

The wheels were, indeed, very badly out of alignment. 70 degrees on one side and 65 on the other. Tire Works fixed that up, replaced the tires, and talked me into getting nitrogen (instead of regular air) in all four for $9.95 - we'll see if that does anything. I can't say enough good stuff about this experience, so I won't even try, what with wanting to do some other things before the hours finish clicking down. Like order a My Ántonia curriculum guide. Which leaves about $50 on the card. Any ideas?

Comments

[Heather in PA]

aaaghhhhhhhggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

We had our first district day today. District had a speaker in to talk about using technology in the classroom - he was SO BAD that it devolved into yelling! People walking OUT of the presentation! With the superintendent sitting RIGHT THERE! Chaos! Basically, his premise was that we need to meet kids where they are with technology, not rely on 'boring lectures' and 'old fashioned' methods. Hard to disagree, right? But he was condescending, rude, antagonistic, hard to believe he speaks to schools/teachers for a living!

If THAT was meant to set the tone for the new year (at the district I have YEARNED to work for)... we can all be VERY VERY afraid.

Kudos on your 'small' classes. Well done!

I look forward to some exciting stories this year!

:)

And .....we're off!
(How many days til summer break?!)

[hannah abigail grace]

i like your food.........thanks for the gift/////////////