You again?

Today was this year's first day of school. I, of course, had been doing inservice for the past couple of days. which for me mostly consists of a few meetings and then a semi-successful search session of burrowing through my huge piles of accumulated paper to try to find the stuff I need for my classes. This is something I usually do over the summer but I didn't get to it this year.

The most humiliating part of this process was when I reached into one of my desk drawers and pulled out a 3 inch-thick pile of papers and realized that I had no idea what any of them were. Why were they there, along with the binder clips and white board markers? It's a little frustrating because I'm not trying to be messy. I'm actually pretty well organized mentally, but it comes to paper, I just have no organizational sense and hate filing. At home, I put every paper for filing in a box until it's full and then I tape it shut. If I then don't open the box for another 6 months I throw the box away.

People who have read this blog know how fond I am of meetings. This year was a bit better because there's a lot of new going on. The biggest change, of course, is that the guy who had been head of school was suddenly explore-new-opportunitiesed, so we have an interim head of school, who was already going to be the new head of academics. This seems to be a positive development and that is my last word on the matter.

I've been looking forward to the start of school for a simple reason. I like it there. I like what I do and I like the people. The kids are fun to hang out with.That was my biggest takeaway after the first day, that I'd spent the entire day smiling.

And of course we start the year with spectacular weather. I was completely clueless this morning. I knew it rained during the night, but it's been raining all the time so I didn't thing anything of it. Then I saw a tree down, and big piles of rocks in the road, and then the roadblocks started. It took me a while to get in, but my daughter, who normally has a 10 minute drive to school, took close to an hour.

This year there's a big new rule: NO GUM CHEWING. They told us to say we were a gum-free school but I can't do that with a straight face. I did, however, make a kid disassociate himself from his gum. Also, I've been told that we will be taking the radical step of (gasp!) decorating the walls. Not with gum, I presume, but perhaps some student work? Make it look like a school, perhaps?

And finally (for tonight), a quick peek inside the math office. We have a new teacher this year and at one point, he asked me if I'd be willing to switch rooms with him one period. Then another teacher, who would have to approve and make the switch official says, "So are you going to make the change?" And New Guy says (jokingly), "Well if he doesn't, I'm not going to speak with him again for the rest of the year." I don't respond, and eventually the other teacher says, "So?" And I said, "Well, I'm just wondering whether I'd prefer New Guy not speaking to me all year."

Back for more tomorrow.