Well, the first week of school was a good one for me. Yay! We didn’t have kids until Wednesday, so Monday & Tuesday were teacher work days.
Monday was meeting filled, but it was great getting the chance to chat with my coworkers again. Several of us ladies went to Bob Evans for lunch in plenty of time to get back for the afternoon meetings, except that the food never came. With 15 minutes to go before we had to leave, we spurred the waitress on and had her switch things from “here” to “to go.” The manager was nice enough to discount our meals since we had to rush back and not eat them in. Bob Evans is usually pretty good about getting lunches out promptly, but we don’t know what happened that day. Our principal was nice enough to let us eat during the meeting, so I had my (now soggy) fish sandwich while I meetinged. (I swear, I teach for free. They pay me to go to meetings and grade papers.)
Tuesday was a day for us to work in our rooms. However, I found myself helping out in the tech job some still. (Poor G, my replacement, has had quite a learning curve on this job. He’s doing great and I think he’ll be a fine addition to the school, but he’s definitely overwhelmed at the start. Funny, I seem to remember always being overwhelmed at the start of the school year too.) Still, a bit after noon, mom popped in to say that she and dad were there to take me off to lunch. We were meeting up with her brothers (and their wives and my cousin) for lunch. Yay for Applebee’s!
The place was packed at lunch. And interestingly enough, the music department for Troy was there in a group. We knew some of the teachers and chatted with them while we waited for our seats. We finally got a seat and had a nice lunch chatting and catching up on family matters. I wasn’t concerned about getting back from lunch since I was going to stay later than required anyway. Which I did.
I stayed late and then returned early that evening. We’ve taken to doing Open House the day before school starts. When I was a kid, Open House was where you showcased what the kids were doing in school. Now it seems to be a Meet & Greet between parents and teachers. And for once, I had some parents meet & greet me! Yay! During the open house, I got more of my room ready and when the evening was done, I felt pretty confident about how things looked for the first day of school.
The first day went off without a hitch. Looks like, as usual, I’ve got a nice bunch of students. It was nice seeing the seniors again – I think they’ll make a nice physics group. And I might even get some of the chemistry students’ names learned before Christmas! Woohoo!
The second and third days of school, OTOH, had an interesting development. See, on the first day of school, it was hot & shitty out. And thus, in our 80+ year old building, was even hotter & shittier inside. We had a few minor heat issues, but it was decided to avoid them during the next two forecasted even hotter and shittier days by having a 2-hour early dismissal for all students and staff. That was a welcome relief, to be sure. I’m one of the lucky ones with air conditioning (thanks to my computer lab) but even my room was pretty warm by the end of the day. And the folks on the third floor? Sheesh!
I know that judiang thinks we’re wusses for having an early dismissal. I know we never had ’em when I was in school (same building). But I told her that it’s all the fault of the lawyers. They’re so big on suing everyone about anything that schools can’t have kids fainting due to heat anymore. And maybe we can also blame Al Gore for inventing Global Warming. 😉
Anyhoo, tomorrow is the start of the second week of school. And it’s going to be tolerable in temperature, it seems. So hopefully no more early dismissals. And maybe it’ll be cool enough in the chemistry lab for me to do some straightening up in there this week. Here’s hoping the second week of school is as nice as the first was!