The blog of Luther M. Siler, teacher, author and local curmudgeon
Totally had a plan for this post, then was unable to find proper image/YouTube support for it and this post kinda won’t work without images and videos.
Dammit.
Screw it; taking today off. It was kind of a shitty week anyway and I’m too tired for humans.
I baked! And I did not bake failure for once!
For the next three hours or so, both of my novels will be $1.99. For the rest of the day after that, Skylights and The Sanctum of the Sphere will be $2.99. That’s still 40% off! The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 will remain 99 cents all day.
If you buy one, I will think fondly upon you while I eat cheesecake. I may even say your name, if you tell me what it is.
I shall transform this into cheesecake. Probably poorly. 
If I were a dog, I would deserve a firm smack on the nose, perhaps with some sort of rolled-up magazine or newspaper, for writing this post. Then again, if a dog actually wrote a blog post, perhaps that would be cause for celebration and not censure. Maybe this metaphor doesn’t quite work. I don’t know.
I spent about an hour this afternoon sitting in my new classroom, just sort of staring at everything. Have some pictures. Ignore the clutter and the untidiness; there were parties yesterday and the janitors haven’t gotten everywhere yet (and the teacher did a terrible job of getting the kids to straighten the room.)
As you can see, the room is cavernous. It’s set up as a science classroom; there’s storage underneath the countertop all the way around. That thing in the back is a vent hood. I can burn shit in there if I want to.
There’s room for, like, a million kids in here, and tons of table space too. There’s 30 student desks, plus three round tables, four computer stations that are probably going away, two rectangular tables, a couple of bar stools for the counter space, and a couple of desk areas built in under the windows. The versatility for seating arrangements is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Both of my previous classrooms could fit inside this one at the same time.
Lots of board space, too. The whiteboard is electronic, and there’s some chalkboard to either side of it, plus a fair amount of bulletin board space, especially if I get rid of the computer stations, which I’m planning to do.
God help me, I sat in this classroom today and for a couple of minutes I was actually looking forward to this fall. I cannot do this. I cannot allow myself this luxury when I don’t think I’m going to be getting paid for the entire school year.
This year was rough. I have no reason to think next year was better, as the two cardinal rules of teaching in Indiana are that nothing ever gets better and everything always gets worse. And “worse” next year is going to be unprecedentedly worse if I can’t get out this summer.
But damn. This classroom.
We got started a bit late, so I think you’ve probably got until midafternoon eastern time today before the novels jump to $1.99, but I just had my best day ever on Amazon. Quick, hop on the bandwagon while everything’s 99 cents!
Tonight (maybe) a reflection on the last school year, and definitely pie.
As of right now, school ought to be ending, and all of my students ought to be going away for a couple of months, and I am probably not dead or in jail. Let’s celebrate the end of the school year with a book sale!
Right now, until about 20 hours from now– just before noon tomorrow, in other words– Skylights, The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 and The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 2: The Sanctum of the Sphere will be only ninety-nine cents at the Amazon. That’s not even a dollar! And a dollar is not a whole lot of money!
(Well, I hope right now. Chances are it’s either already started or it will within an hour or so. But it was supposed to start at 3! Amazon doesn’t do clocks very well.)
Roughly every 20 hours after that, the price will go up a dollar on everything but BA 1, which is always 99 cents at Amazon. The sale ends Saturday night, when both books go back to regular price. So if you don’t get around to picking it up immediately, or you’d prefer to give me more than 99 cents of your money, the sale will still continue for a bit longer.
Celebrate the end of a school year with some summer reading!
(EDIT: 5:38 PM Eastern, two and a half hours late, and the sale hasn’t started. Will update when it does. Am growing aggravated.)
Got me a post about them comicky books over at Sourcerer— possibly part of an ongoing thing, we’ll see– that you might want to check out.
One more day.