Test School Day

I actually managed to get up at 6 AM on the nose this morning. I did my normal school morning routine (minus getting professionally dressed, which adds time), and left right at 7, which is when I usually try to get out of the house. Meggie got up with me too, which was really nice, and made be breakfast and packed my lunch.

I drove to school, taking the long way, as I wanted to see if the construction in Berlin had finished over the summer. No such luck, Routes 30 and 73 are all still ripped up, and it doesn't look like they'll be done anytime soon. I guess the state shutdown, tons of rain and the beginning of the summer, and tons or rain at the end of the summer slowed things down.

Got to school at 7:30, and then realized that no one would be there that early, and the building would be locked. So, I relaxed in my car until about when our CST coordinator arrived. She let me in, and I headed into my room for the first time since June.

It was like Christmas Day! My purchase orders had come in. So I opened up all of the boxes and checked to see if I got everything. All of my band music from JW pepper was there, about 15 pieces in all. My recorders and books had arrived, along with a concert sleigh bell, a cowbell, another soprano glockenspiel, 4 new guitars, and various school/office supplies. I am still missing the shelves I ordered, the reeds and valve oil and supplies from Music & Arts, and Manila folders. I will check into these things if they are not in by next week.

I got to work on setting things up: dragged out all of the keyboards and classroom instruments. I also unpacked anything that was packed up, and set up my computers. After that I was ready for lunch, but was curious about what my schedule for next year looked like.

So I stopped by the Principal's office and got my schedule. It is VERY different, but I am looking forward to the change. For example, our school is on a 6 day cycle, and last year on Day 3, I had two 7th grade classes, an 8th grade class (all of which can be a challenge), and one of the worse-behaved 5th grade classes. Needless to say, I never looked forward to Day 3. Well now, Day 3 is completely different.

While I ate lunch, I looked over my schedule and thought of ways to fit the instrument lessons in. My first year, I had lessons on days 4, 5, and 6, as I only had 4 General music classes between those three days. This past year, I had to add lessons on Day 3, as I had a lot of new students. This 3,4,5,6 thing won't really work this year, so I am spreading out my lessons over the whole week, here and there. It will be a challenge to have to change gears, but I think it will make my days more balanced.

After lunch, I unpacked my office, and cleaned and reorganized the desk drawers. At about 2:15, I thought I might start putting up my bulletin boards, but I realized that my stapler disappeared last year. And since I wanted to leave at 3 anyway, the bulletin boards would be too big of a project to complete before then, so I got my stuff together, and headed home.

I got home, with intentions of swimming since it was hot and humid, but there were tornado warnings in Delaware, and a huge storm headed our way, so the pool was out of the question.

Instead, I unplugged all of our electronics, and Meggie and I played scrabble. She won, but only by 1 point. I guess we are pretty well matched.

After that, we had Tacos for dinner, talked for a while, and then I dove right back into school work. Now that I had my schedule, I was able to finish working on my band schedule and handbook. I finished the schedule, but I still have to finish up the handbook, but it will all get done. I am way ahead of the game right now anyway.

Here are two pictures from our scrabble game.



Our completed scrabble board (words we came up with: is, sh*t, grid, hick, tent, caned, suck, rub, job, soiled, lazed, fad, zoned, nano, lit, pelt, log, got, toy, one, no, hey, hog, gun, fro, if, ped, peel, rev, raw, war, reel, yow, om, war, rim, rat, stab, and bed) Meg one with a score of 236, I closely followed with a 235.



Me putting away the board (also known as, "Meggie playing with the camera," as there are about 6 pictures of me putting away the board).