Shaddup Already!
2004-07-26
First day went okay
Today was an interesting day. It started with me pulling up to the school to realize that the county was using it as the place to hold orientation for at least 100 new teachers. Cami, my loaner dog, was so funny. We pulled into the school drive and at first you couldn't see the cars. She got all excited because she had spent last week there and got lots of attention. Then we turned the little corner and there were cars parked over the entire soccer field. Cami's eyes got wide. If she were a person, her jaw would have dropped, I'm sure.Then I parked near the front office to sign in. Cami was clearly overwhelmed by the number of people and she was sticking to me like glue. A few people petted her and then I went in the office to sign in. My principal came in and smiled at Cami. Then he petted her. I do think I'm going to like this guy.
I took Cami back to my portable and the person that called me snippy got all excited when she saw the dog. As predicted, she acted as though nothing happened. People are such dog 'ho's. I mean, people will do anything, just about, to be able to pet and play with a well-behaved and gorgeous dog.
Case in point, there is this teacher who made my life a living hell my first year teaching. Then last year, my second year teaching, she pointedly ignored me. This morning I got a smile and a conversation about dogs. Then later I wanted into the building where she is and the door was locked. She happened to be the one coming down the hall, so she let me in. Before she even had the door open she asked if the dog was there. She smiled and talked to me the way she used to talk to me before she decided she wanted me off her team--or better yet, fired.
Cami met lots of people today and then we crashed in my portable. She slept pretty well and learned how to retrieve pens, a stack of notecards and her water dish. She is really amazing. The only problem I had was when I was transferring Brady the sloth to a piece of posterboard. I put the picture on an overhead transparency and then projected it onto the paper that I hung on the wall (yes, that's a run-on sentence, folks, even an English teacher does it--hey, I've even been known to dangle a participle or two). If you've ever been in a mobile home or a portable classroom, you know the whole room shakes when you walk across the floor. So I'm trying to trace my sloth and Cami is moving all over the place around the overhead projector. It was hard and there are some shaky points, but Brady has been drawn.
I met with the math teacher on my team. She and I are the only team members to remain from last year. It kind of felt like nothing had changed, but then we would realize that we have two new teachers. Not only do we have two new teachers, they are floaters. That means they don't have classrooms of their own. It's very weird and presents a bit of a problem when you go looking for someone and realize they don't have a room to look for them in (look, I ended a sentence with a preposition! I've really got to get back to school).
Tomorrow there is a workshop from Kagan. They are leaders in cooperative learning. I've taken one workshop from them and enjoyed it, so I'll be going to this one. Not to mention that lunch is provided.
Also my committee members and myself will be getting together to take our picture and, hopefully, rehearse our skit.
Oh yeah, I have the same schedule as last year. My plan period is 2nd period, which is okay. That means at the second half of the year, when we flip schedules, I'll only have to dismiss students one day a week. I hate dismissing students. But right now my biggest class is 5th period, which is a bad time of day. It's right after lunch and the kids are wired on slurpees and pizza.
