Monday, Jan. 03, 2005
Back to school 2005, posted at 5:46 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Today was back to the grind. One boy told me at 7:57 that I seemed like I might be in a bad mood this morning. I told him, no, I just hadn't drank any coffee yet. My schedule is all messed up. I didn't make it up to go the gym in the morning, meaning I'm going tonight, and woke up at 7:10am. I left the house at 7:37 (thankfully, no ticket even though it was seven minutes after I needed to be gone). I arrived at school in time to make the copies of my brilliant lesson (check questions over books 16-19 from the Odyssey culled from the packet that Livenlove printed off for me). But, I scooted right out of there after first period to get some 7-11 coffee.The rest of the day went fine. English 3 is pretty fun right now, since I finally finished Frankenstein and have some semblence of where I'm going. And it was great to see my colleagues again. We like each other so much that we give each other New Years hugs on the first day back to work. In the middle of class.
Actually, that just happened once, and I forgave her.
My plans for a Happy Hour were thwarted, however, by a long fiery staff meeting. Our new principal was not there (prescient of things to come?) and it is clear that the feelings about him that I feel are pretty much universal. I like my job too much to write about them much on here, but suffice it to say that the superintendent of schools will be getting an e-mail from me tonight about things. Apparently she has even asked for feedback because decisions are brewing.
The meeting started off slowly, but eventually there were tears from grads of the school about how things used to be, and a heavy tirade by the slightly crazy Biology teacher who wears the boy scout uniform who I like more and more every year even though I'm quite sure he doesn't have a clue what my name is even though we've taught 9th graders one floor from each other for four years now.
My mom bought me a key finder that goes off when you whistle. It went off all day today in my classroom. You can't turn it off; it must be have been a cheap one. It's a bummer, but I'll probably have to remove it. I tried playing it off as much as possible with the kids, but it got a little distracting during the staff meeting.
It's good to be back.