Back to school daze

I've never understood the name "Back to School Night." The only people who are actually going back to school on Back To School Night are the teachers who had been there working earlier in the day. I suppose some of the parents may have been at school earlier picking up their kids, so they are coming back. But I don't really think that's what it's referring to, though the issue I guess is that I don't have any idea what it's referring to. It's akin to in service. I know what it means but I don't know why it means what it does. Okay, getting too tangled up in it, so let's move on.

We're in day 2 of the year, and here's what I've noticed so far:

• I always thought I hated meetings. Now I'm sure of it. Meetings are great when you need to discuss something as a group or if you are announcing something that nobody else knows. Otherwise they are in some way wasting people's time, and there is a huge falloff in their usefulness after a certain point. If you're someone like me who gets things the first time you tell me (or 5 seconds after you put the Powerpoint slide up), then every moment spent subsequent to that wastes my time. When that happens if I'm reading a non-fiction book that's supposed to be explaining something I can just stop reading. But in a meeting I'm stuck unless I just up and leave. I don't react well in those situations. I get contrary.
• Relatedly, one of the reasons I get on well with adolescents is that I am one in many way. I take things literally and my immediate reaction if you tell me to do something (as opposed to asking) is to say NO! So somehow, just in the past 24 hours, I've gotten several emails where the subject line says "Important" or "Important Notice" or even "Important to read this!" That last one is particularly annoying because once you call an email important, it's pretty obvious what you mean is that people should read it.                                                                                         That aside, my immediate reaction when I see "Important" in the subject line is "I'll be the judge that," because subject-line-"Important" implies important to the reader. We know that you think it's important because you sent the email, and unless we care about that we're not going to care about your email.
• I work in a department with 8 women. This was amusing at times last year when, for example, there was a mouse in the office. I won't name names but you know who you are. One of the perks for me is that I have one of the 3 bathrooms basically to myself (for those of you not familiar with my workplace, our offices were formerly hotel rooms and the math department is 3 connecting rooms, each with its own bathroom). It's even referred to as "Frank's bathroom." As in, Teacher 1: "If I get pregnant you'll know because last kid I threw up all the time." Teacher 2: "Well if that happens, can you do it in Frank's bathroom?" Yes, an atmosphere of mutual respect. We definitely have the most fun.
• Rather than earnestly getting involved in the running of the school as I did last year, this year I am going to limit myself to heckling. So far that's been fun, especially during inexplicably long email threads.
• I also vow to not get irritated if things aren't working smoothly because experience should be telling me that they just won't, so I will focus on attaining an air of detached bemusement.
• The nicest thing about being back at school is seeing the kids. During the summer and in service, school meant two things- throwing out old papers, and listening to people complain about stuff. Who did what to who, what "they" are doing to whoever, that kind of thing. The teaching stuff is what's fun for me; I really am doing this job simply because I enjoy it.
• Nothing to do with school but the corner of Montgomery Avenue and Old Lancaster/Levering Mill is the worst intersection I've ever had to deal with regularly, at least when you're headed from Merion toward the city. That whole block by Hymie's and the nail places is awful and the people waiting to make left turns are a hazard.

And so it goes. This was a long week, even with only two school days. More to come.