It will not surprise you to learn that I have been putting off a number of things that needed doing, and as a result it is the Sunday before I have to go back to work and I have a number of Things that need accomplishing. That said … the reading room is done? Or close enough, at least? I need to do something with that shelf in the middle, there, the one that is leaning to the side; hopefully I can come up with a way to push the shelf next to it a couple inches over to shore it up a bit without removing every single Goddamned book off of the shelves again. We had one bookshelf fall apart moving it from the living room to here, and several of these are not going to survive another transition, but if I can pin it between two shelves that are more or less properly vertical we ought to be okay.
I’ll put up some pictures of the living room and the bathroom soon too; the living room’s conversion is complete, barring only some cable management behind the TV that — wait for it — I’ve been putting off, and, well, the bathroom is exciting. But for now I’m going to cross “blog post” off of my to-do list and move on to something else. I gotta make it through five days this week and then I get a three-day weekend for MLK Day; I should be able to manage that, I think.
This month’s edition featuring Roald and Strrrt, and entirely too many Goddamned books. I swear, I read.
Also, I figured out after taking the picture that I have a setting called “Rich Contrast” enabled on my phone somehow, which is why the last two images have looked so very saturated. It’s fixed now, but I was too lazy to retake the picture.
Dropped off my stuff in the new classroom today. I don’t love it, but it’ll do, especially if I come up with some ways to liven the space up a bit, and the fact that every single square inch of wall can have stuff attached to it is encouraging. I haven’t done any actual decorating– everything on the walls was there when I walked in today, including the (genuinely appreciated) welcome message on the bulletin board, but here’s what we’ve got:
The view from my desk. My biggest class is only twenty-four kids, which is spectacular, as I have way more desks than that, but they’re armchair style and they’re currently in rows. I’ll rearrange them eventually but for now that’s what we’ve got.
Major disadvantage #1: the classroom has no windows and therefore no natural light, which is going to murder me during the winter. I’m never going to see the fucking sun, and I predict I go out a lot for lunch, especially since my lunch and prep periods run together so I’ve got a longer contiguous break than usual.
The desk area itself. There’s a nice open space in front of it; I could put a group work table there or I could see if somebody has a couch or a chair they don’t want or something like that. There’s plenty of space in the room, especially with a max of 24 kids.
Problem the second: that teeny little whiteboard is all the space I have in the room, and I can apparently choose between using it as a whiteboard or using it to project on, but not both, which is … suboptimal. Now, on the plus side, I did ask the principal if it was possible to put whiteboards on the entire back wall of the room and she didn’t blink. I’m not getting it tomorrow or anything but it wasn’t immediately shot down, so hopefully I won’t have to deal with this for too much longer, as that’s an instructional handicap and not an environmental one. I can cope with no windows; I’ve had windowless classrooms before and there are ways to deal with them. No whiteboard space? That’s a genuine problem.
And then the final view of the room. There’s a doorway to the classroom next to me in the back there, which … okay, that’s fine, I guess. If I’m not getting new whiteboards right away I need to come up with something good for that back wall. We’ll see.
God damn it, I swear I read books. I think there’s only like two or three on here new to this month.
(And, because I feel like it needs an explanation: I really want to read the John Gwynne book, but there are three sequels. I’m waiting until I finish a few more of the series books on the shelf before adding another one.)
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