And we're off!!!

So, anyway! I’m in my first full week now at my new school. On my first day, it’s Open House. People are scrambling left and right trying to get ready for the parents that will soon be coming to meet their children’s teachers. I don’t have a home yet, so one of the staff takes me around to the classrooms and introduces me to the teachers. I’m absolutely loving all the creativity I’m seeing with the room setups, wall decorations, centers that are set up, etc. While they’re talking, I’m taking thousands of mental notes about which things I like and would love to use in my classroom, once I get it. At this point, I still don’t know which grade(s) I’ll be working with, but I’m taking in everything at every level, just in case. At least I have it narrowed down now to K-5! 

I get the key to my mobile unit (trailer, haha) in the afternoon, and go in to see what I’ll be dealing with in terms of cleanup and furniture needs and stuff. This place was in need of a serious clean-up. The trailer was used for storage for a good while, so although the walls were painted, they’re now scraped up and dirty and icky in many places because so much furniture has been pushed up against them for so long. Definitely gotta paint. In terms of furniture, I have plenty of desks and chairs for the kids, but no tables. One table in the whole room, and I’m holding onto it for dear life. If someone takes that one out, we’re in a world of trouble when we finally get our computers. We have a storage cabinet (yay) and one teacher’s desk, too. While the other furniture is on order for us, we scrub and disinfect and polish up everything we can… Comet and bleach are our best friends on these days.

School finally starts a few days later, and so does our painting. The other teacher and I work together to get the walls covered and have the room nice and bright and welcoming for when our students start spending time with us. For the next two days, although school is fully in session now and there are kids everywhere, I’m in jeans and a tshirt because my whole day right now consists of painting those walls so that that part will be behind us and we can move on to room arrangement sometime soon. So one day, I’m well into my painting, light yellow spots of paint all over my tshirt and jeans, hands covered in paint splotches, a fine spray of paint on the side of my face from when I pushed the paint roller too hard across the wall because my hands were starting to literally hurt from painting so much (and because the paint was starting to get low, so every little bit had to come out of that dern thing so the remaining paint would be enough to last)… and we get a fire drill. SERIOUSLY?????  I look a mess. No, scratch that. I look BEYOND a mess. My jeans are rolled up around my ankles, I just have on socks so my shoes wouldn’t get messed up, and my hair is in an I-don’t-care-how-I-look-I’ve-got-work-to-do ponytail kind of thing. And where do I have to go?? Out of my nice, private trailer into the parking lot with many, many (many) kids all lined up and clean and pretty, and tons of teachers who look clean and professional and who don’t know me or what the heck I’ve been doing for the last two days. Yep. Wonderful. I get so many strange looks from the kids and from the teachers who are around, but can’t say anything because during fire drills, we have to be silent. I’m soo, so glad to finally hear the announcement from the office that the fire drill is over and we can return to our classrooms that I don’t know what to do. I walk as fast as I can back to my trailer in an effort to minimize the number of other people seeing me looking such a mess … oh, my goodness. What a way to meet my colleagues!!

I'm MzNewTeacher! Nice to meetcha!