what's happening
Well. school is started. It feels like we never left for the summer. Yet I had the summer of my life. I learned so much about myself and challenged myself in my art. Loved it.
Now I am back to the school job. The first couple of days were a bit shaky. I had to do a teacher in-service for school improvement---I am the school's chairperson for that project. I had a couple of teacher defy some of the plans of action(which we all worked on implementing). I handled it with grace but it was very stressful.
Art classes are going very well. They are basically segregated by sex--not planned but they work out.
I have had the elementary school library added to my job of 1/2 time art and 1/2 time high school library---yet each of the library jobs could be considered full time. Anyway last year I weeded the elementary library and the high school fiction. Two huge jobs. I am still not done with the paperwork of totally taking the book information from the card catalog. Oh yah---we are not automated yet. The elementary library has not had a single record of the books that have been added into the collection for 6 years. So all the card catalog is outdated. The only thing to do is to start over and inventory the whole library. I could not convince my supt that I needed and extended contract to do the job over the summer. Now I am trying to do an inventory as teachers and students are checking out books, we are repairing shelves (many books on book carts) and I am working with two "aids". (Both in their 70's, one without ANY computer skills, I taught her how to use the mouse this week and to top it off the two aids have personal issues between them--major. They work it out fairly well but I catch undertones.) I inventoried 850 books this week on an excel program, only the primary books AND got the whole rural school library from a school that closed. We weeded through those books and I am working on places for them to go--some gone, some historical society, some to teachers, a huge batch to be processed into our libraries, and some for students to take home and enjoy. I am literally soar from lifting boxes of books. I am almost done sorting and have to haul boxes yet. Then on to completing the inventory, matching the books from the rural school to see if we need each book, and processing the books for students to use. I am also teaching one of my aids how to put books away in order. She has been doing it for years and is finally getting a little closer to how shelving books is like filing folders---it is all about alphabetizing. She is trying very hard and I so hope she gets it. When the books are in order and we have an inventory---we can actually use the library like it should be. With only a couple of hours a day for the elementary library it really feels overwhelming.
I have not been to my studio for weeks. It is hard to think creatively after expending as much energy on other projects as I have these couple of weeks.
Now I am back to the school job. The first couple of days were a bit shaky. I had to do a teacher in-service for school improvement---I am the school's chairperson for that project. I had a couple of teacher defy some of the plans of action(which we all worked on implementing). I handled it with grace but it was very stressful.
Art classes are going very well. They are basically segregated by sex--not planned but they work out.
I have had the elementary school library added to my job of 1/2 time art and 1/2 time high school library---yet each of the library jobs could be considered full time. Anyway last year I weeded the elementary library and the high school fiction. Two huge jobs. I am still not done with the paperwork of totally taking the book information from the card catalog. Oh yah---we are not automated yet. The elementary library has not had a single record of the books that have been added into the collection for 6 years. So all the card catalog is outdated. The only thing to do is to start over and inventory the whole library. I could not convince my supt that I needed and extended contract to do the job over the summer. Now I am trying to do an inventory as teachers and students are checking out books, we are repairing shelves (many books on book carts) and I am working with two "aids". (Both in their 70's, one without ANY computer skills, I taught her how to use the mouse this week and to top it off the two aids have personal issues between them--major. They work it out fairly well but I catch undertones.) I inventoried 850 books this week on an excel program, only the primary books AND got the whole rural school library from a school that closed. We weeded through those books and I am working on places for them to go--some gone, some historical society, some to teachers, a huge batch to be processed into our libraries, and some for students to take home and enjoy. I am literally soar from lifting boxes of books. I am almost done sorting and have to haul boxes yet. Then on to completing the inventory, matching the books from the rural school to see if we need each book, and processing the books for students to use. I am also teaching one of my aids how to put books away in order. She has been doing it for years and is finally getting a little closer to how shelving books is like filing folders---it is all about alphabetizing. She is trying very hard and I so hope she gets it. When the books are in order and we have an inventory---we can actually use the library like it should be. With only a couple of hours a day for the elementary library it really feels overwhelming.
I have not been to my studio for weeks. It is hard to think creatively after expending as much energy on other projects as I have these couple of weeks.