Bookish braindump

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Reading2 Comments

You, uh, might have heard that Sarah J. Maas had a couple of announcements today.

I got a text from The Friend I Talk About Books With around 1:00 in the afternoon, which I can only assume was milliseconds after the titles and covers for ACOTAR 6 and 7 were released. I had to ignore said texts until I got home, at which point our conversation reminded me that I probably need to reread this whole fucking series before I read the new books, and I also very much need to wait for both of them to come out and then read both of them back-to-back. And apparently the spider on the cover of ACOFM is hinting to people that the Throne of Glass series, my favorite of Maas’ work, is being folded into the ACOTAR universe somehow?

Y’all, I don’t have time to reread ACOTAR, and I definitely don’t have time to reread ToG, which is 5,000 pages all on its own. I’ve got four more Wheel of Time books, probably right around 4K pages all by themselves. I’ve got four more Temeraire books. I have fourteen fucking Realm of the Elderlings books that I was going to dive into once I got WoT and Temeraire knocked out. I do not have time for this. I need y’all– and by y’all I mean every writer in the world, and yes, I’m looking directly at you, Adrian Tchaikovsky– to just … stop, for a while, while I get caught up. Either that or I need my job to agree to keep paying me for doing my job without me actually doing my job, so that I can just sit at home and read.

Anyway, I’m going to hit Publish on this and then go see how much of the history of the Iranian monarchy I’m reading right now I can get finished by bed. Tomorrow I’m going to tell my students to stfu and leave me alone because I have books to finish.

Christ.

Sunday me day work for free day!

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I think I’m ready for tomorrow, maybe.

I have spent today setting up spreadsheets, looking at IEPs, looking at 504 plans (not done with either of those tasks by a long shot,) setting up my Canvas classes, editing last year’s How My Class Works presentations, putting together an explainer so that new staff know how to sync grades between Canvas and PowerTeacher, redoing seating charts, planning out next week, and somehow, despite the fact that tomorrow will only be the third day of school, grading. I’m not even teaching until Wednesday, guys, and right now Tuesday in my plans is reserved entirely for physical tasks like “give everyone their workbooks and notes folders” and “name calculators,” which is a real thing all of my classes have to do. There is also a section that just says “Whatever else I forgot about.”

Mental note: I need cotton balls and alcohol to remove last year’s names from the calculators. I’m told that erases paint marker nicely. We shall see.

Also: learn 137 names.

Whee!

Post-demolition update

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The overhead light still needs to go, and there are three really stubborn nails that I may just cut off instead of pulling, but we are basically ready for the new closet to go in at this point. This was way easier than either of us thought it was going to be.

More later, probably.

You look like my next mistake

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Guess what’s happening later this week?

Let’s see. I promised a real post today, after several days of brief whines about being tired, only … really, all I did today was clear out my closet. A little bit of shopping for my son’s birthday later in the week. And I put together my parent contact log for this year, which, damn it, I’m going to use, and I’m going to use it because I’m going to be better about contacting parents.

I’ve been saying this for 22 years and it hasn’t happened; I hate talking to parents. This will be the year, though, I swear. I also dug into discipline data from last year and it turns out that my current group of kids had considerably fewer office referrals than either of the other two grades last year, which was an interesting thing to find out. Tomorrow, in between– ahem– some bouts of demolition work, I need to do lesson planning, because it turns out I do actually have to teach this week. And so it goes.

That probably doesn’t count as a real post. I guess it’s good that this is my blog and it’s up to me. 🙂

Survived, happy

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I’ll be back to normal tomorrow, and today was a stellar second day of school, but my God, I’m going to die early for like the fourth day in a row.

Another one in the books

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My 23rd first day of school– I counted, I know I’m right this time– is done and dusted. One down, 179 left to go.

I have been talking for seven and a half hours, and I’m exhausted. I’m changing my plans for tomorrow so that I don’t have to talk as much. I’ll make Monday another big talky-talky day; these kids are gonna have to move around tomorrow. It was pretty nondescript as these things go; I have no immediate problem kids and the handful I had an eye on at least managed to come off as friendly and approachable. No obvious rage beasts just yet, which is good. I said “You will either be my favorite student or my nemesis” to at least two different kids, and of those two, I’m pretty sure I got lucky by having him in first hour. The kid who was widely regarded as the biggest discipline problem in the 7th grade last year is in my fourth hour and did not draw attention to himself today.

All positives, basically. That said, I’m so tired I could die, so I’m going to go do that.

In which I think I got away with it

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching2 Comments

The boss spent at least an hour in my classroom today for a meeting, and then came back later and helped me move some boxes of textbooks from a cart in the hallway onto the counter directly behind the couches, so I think she’s probably not going to have anything to say about them, at least not right now. I’ll take it. I mean, if they end up with lice or some shit I’ll have to get rid of them, which is probably the reason for the rule, but that was never not true.

Also, I found out that the annual beg for school supplies that I’ve been running for years is also against school board policy and is supposed to get approved in advance– not by the principal, but by the school board. I got two more packages today, so … oops, I guess? I’m super chastened right now, I swear. I won’t do anything against board policy for at least a month, I promise.(*)

(Note again: they’re fine with banning us from asking for donations through Amazon wish lists– specifically referenced in the policy– without permission from the school board, but nobody is actually suggesting that they might pay to outfit the classrooms with supplies properly. There are three copiers in our building for seventy-something teachers and all three have been broken for at least a day this week. Fix that shit and leave me the fuck alone.)

I think I’m ready for tomorrow. I’m a little more nervous right now than I usually am, which is surprising; this week has been A Lot in a way that the last few years haven’t for some reason. Once the kids are in the room it’ll go fine, I know that, and as usual everyone I met at Open House last night seemed super nice. But I am going to sleep well this weekend.

(*) almost definitely not true

Two more hours

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A double shift of Open House was already going to be bad enough— 1:00-3:00 and then 5:00-7:00– but I was not prepared for a fucking tornado warning to happen during the first half. Not fun.

Gonna die the moment I get home. Today started out with moving the cars away from the hail, so I’ve pretty much had enough of everything at this point.