Today, I spent seven hours at the school. As you saw from the pictures I posted a couple of days ago, I had my work cut out for me.
At first, the task seemed insurmountable.
I don’t know what you do in situations like this, but I like to put on some music and get my groove on.
Last night, I installed the free Pandora application on my fancy-schmancy new phone.
I was ready to boogie my way through those books, bookcases, and desks.
And that is what I did.
The Mr. was kind enough to buy me a couple of packages of finishing nails so I could nail the back pieces of my bookcases back together.
See, when I was transferring them from the building that houses the primary grades to my room, I managed to drop both of them, making them a little worse for wear.
Apparently I cannot be trusted with a dolly.
Getting my room organized has been my number one priority because I cannot function in a mess.
Oh, I know my house isn’t the cleanest, but it is kind-of-sort-of picked up (notice I did not say kind-of-sort-of clean as in eat-off-the-floor-clean), but I keep it fairly straightened up.
My work environment HAS to be neat.
I have always been like this.
And that is what led to a major oops.
You know how you’ll be cleaning the house, and you take something to one room and find something that needs to be done there, so you start cleaning it, completely forgetting about what you were originally doing?
Well, that happened to me.
I have two desks in the room, and I went to the one with the drawers on a mission to find something…maybe a pair of scissors.
Oh my. The drawers were in need of purging.
Once I got started, I could not stop.
I cleaned the heck out of all nine of them.
I organized the push pins, rubber bands, and post-it notes. I even separated the large paper clips from the small ones.
Yeah.
I’m anal like that.
My trash bag got more and more full.
Finally, I was done, and I dragged the bag outside to the dumpster, where it broke before I could lift it.
Ugh.
90+ degree heat, and there I was squatting down trying to scoop up pens and other stuff from the dirt on the curb.
Nasty, but I got the job done.
I happily went back inside.
A couple of hours later, I saw the teacher who had used the classroom last year.
I happily waved to her.
She asked if that was her stuff in the dumpster.
Uh oh.
My heart fell.
You see, I thought she had taken all of her stuff out of the room last week.
Apparently, she had not gotten to her desk.
Oh, you guys…I cannot tell you how horrible I felt as she walked back outside to go dumpster diving to see what could be salvaged.
I fear that she did not find much.
Sigh.
I could not believe that this would be one of her first impressions of me.
I apologized profusely and offered to replace any supplies I’d gotten rid of.
To her credit, she was very gracious, even while I admitted that I should not have assumed that I had the green light to clear things out.
I have much to learn.
All-in-all, it was a very productive day.
Although the room is not quite where I want it to be, I see light at the end of the tunnel.
Here are the before and after photos…
The desk that the computer is sitting on in the top right photo will be going bye-bye tomorrow…following its owner, so the Mr. bought me another desk to replace it.
That means I get to strap on my carpenter’s belt and do some construction! Woo Hoo!!
I am also planning on hanging another dry erase board on the long wall opposite the one that is home to the small desk. I hope to do this next week during my first official (meaning I get paid) week on the job.
Meanwhile, the hallway is looking much more manageable…
So, I still have a lot to do, but it’s fun to celebrate each day’s progress.
Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: teaching | 4 Comments »
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