i can't even really remember the last time i updated.
OK. Summary of my life right now:
Every day, I wake up at 7 or 7:20. I take the UCSC bike shuttle up the hill to lower campus, then ride my bike down to High Street and up to Westlake Elementary. There, I go up first to a portable third grade classroom, and usually immediately go back down the hill to the office copy room to make mountains of copies, however many I can finish in the hour. I go back up, deposit the copies in her room, occasionally grade some math tests. I then go to another portable, where there are usually more copies to do (down the hill, through the auditorium, to bond with the machines in the motor-heated copy room) and then sometimes have spelling tests to grade upon my return, or sometimes needles to thread, books to make with the crazy stapler, etc. Then to one more portable classroom, to file things, and inevitably get more copy work, down to the copy room, etc.
An important note for the story of my life is that there is a copy room troll. Her name is Anna, and she's a Foster Grandparent, which apparently translates to her hanging out at the school, spending a few minutes a day helping in classrooms, and the rest of the day in the copy room eating, making coffee, and keeping people from using the large cutter, which she swears will be the death of someone. The large cutter has no lock to keep the cutting arm down when not in use. Though hazardous for transport, this fact has no bearing on the cutter's safety or efficacy when you have to actually use it. The small cutter, on the other hand, has become dull from overuse, since the troll will only let anyone use it. Anna is I would say under four feet tall, severely osteoporetic and hunchbacked, and has about three inches of white roots showing at the top of her dyed auburn hair. She is crazy. When I'm working for my first teacher, she usually isn't there yet. After 9:30, she's just constantly in there.
I try to turn off the lights when I'm in the copy room, because the florescent lights hang very low in there and florescents are the quickest way to give me a migraine. Since I want to work in schools for the rest of my life, this means I really should get some kind of working preventative medication as well as the pills I take when I get a migraine, but to get started on all of that, I would need a job with benefits and insurance. I've learned quickly that people who work in a school are conditioned just like the kids to have very strict routines. They get very confused when the lights are turned off, even though there's plenty of natural light coming through the window. Hence, I've deduced that when I'm the only one in there, I can turn them off, but as soon as anyone else arrives, they're on. This makes the copy room troll a problem for me. At some point I may get fed up and ask if she minds if they're off, since her spot is over by the window anyhow, but I feel bad doing it unless I already have a migraine going.
After I spend an hour working for each of these teachers, the lunch rotations start, and I become a Yard Duty. I have an ugly orange vest and currently share a clipboard, since there aren't enough. I had to clean up a maple syrup spill in a lunchbox and on a girl today. Having inherited even a fraction of my father's stickiness aversion, this was a trial.
I watch two lunch periods in a row, and at 1:10 I get to leave and ride my bike down the hills to the optometrist's office, where I work with wonderful but crazy people, and one crazy and irritating but sometimes endearing person, until 5, except Thursdays, when I work there until 7 and therefore take a break between the two. I then ride my bike up the hill home, or if I'm feeling totally beaten, put my bike on a bus to get home. There is no one, in my whole day, who is not eccentric or who is a textbook normal person. They're all completely insane, as elementary school people are, and I often have more linear and sensible conversations with the eight year olds than I do with their teachers.
Update: Graniterock Construction Co. has donated new vests for the new conflict manager student teams,and we therefore also got new vests. The old ones were orange mesh and hideous. The new ones are the neonest neon yellow imaginable, solid fabric, with a bunch of orange reflective strips. Totally worse than the old ones, but cleaner, since they're new. I also interviewed at the same school, with the principal who hired me, for a library media services position, and the interview went well. I know I won't get it if another applicant has library experience, or if the principal (whose name is Clyde Curley -- how awesome is that?) wants to avoid having to re-hire to replace me in the job I'm currently doing. Otherwise, I have a shot. It's 6 hours a day, which means benefits, and pays better per hour. I could actually start saving up some money if I got this job, instead of continually dipping into the savings to make rent. That would be awesome, so please think lovely thoughts on my behalf.
and, naturally, I've been working with hundreds of dirty kids for two weeks, so I'm coming down with a gnarly cold.
Every day, I wake up at 7 or 7:20. I take the UCSC bike shuttle up the hill to lower campus, then ride my bike down to High Street and up to Westlake Elementary. There, I go up first to a portable third grade classroom, and usually immediately go back down the hill to the office copy room to make mountains of copies, however many I can finish in the hour. I go back up, deposit the copies in her room, occasionally grade some math tests. I then go to another portable, where there are usually more copies to do (down the hill, through the auditorium, to bond with the machines in the motor-heated copy room) and then sometimes have spelling tests to grade upon my return, or sometimes needles to thread, books to make with the crazy stapler, etc. Then to one more portable classroom, to file things, and inevitably get more copy work, down to the copy room, etc.
An important note for the story of my life is that there is a copy room troll. Her name is Anna, and she's a Foster Grandparent, which apparently translates to her hanging out at the school, spending a few minutes a day helping in classrooms, and the rest of the day in the copy room eating, making coffee, and keeping people from using the large cutter, which she swears will be the death of someone. The large cutter has no lock to keep the cutting arm down when not in use. Though hazardous for transport, this fact has no bearing on the cutter's safety or efficacy when you have to actually use it. The small cutter, on the other hand, has become dull from overuse, since the troll will only let anyone use it. Anna is I would say under four feet tall, severely osteoporetic and hunchbacked, and has about three inches of white roots showing at the top of her dyed auburn hair. She is crazy. When I'm working for my first teacher, she usually isn't there yet. After 9:30, she's just constantly in there.
I try to turn off the lights when I'm in the copy room, because the florescent lights hang very low in there and florescents are the quickest way to give me a migraine. Since I want to work in schools for the rest of my life, this means I really should get some kind of working preventative medication as well as the pills I take when I get a migraine, but to get started on all of that, I would need a job with benefits and insurance. I've learned quickly that people who work in a school are conditioned just like the kids to have very strict routines. They get very confused when the lights are turned off, even though there's plenty of natural light coming through the window. Hence, I've deduced that when I'm the only one in there, I can turn them off, but as soon as anyone else arrives, they're on. This makes the copy room troll a problem for me. At some point I may get fed up and ask if she minds if they're off, since her spot is over by the window anyhow, but I feel bad doing it unless I already have a migraine going.
After I spend an hour working for each of these teachers, the lunch rotations start, and I become a Yard Duty. I have an ugly orange vest and currently share a clipboard, since there aren't enough. I had to clean up a maple syrup spill in a lunchbox and on a girl today. Having inherited even a fraction of my father's stickiness aversion, this was a trial.
I watch two lunch periods in a row, and at 1:10 I get to leave and ride my bike down the hills to the optometrist's office, where I work with wonderful but crazy people, and one crazy and irritating but sometimes endearing person, until 5, except Thursdays, when I work there until 7 and therefore take a break between the two. I then ride my bike up the hill home, or if I'm feeling totally beaten, put my bike on a bus to get home. There is no one, in my whole day, who is not eccentric or who is a textbook normal person. They're all completely insane, as elementary school people are, and I often have more linear and sensible conversations with the eight year olds than I do with their teachers.
Update: Graniterock Construction Co. has donated new vests for the new conflict manager student teams,and we therefore also got new vests. The old ones were orange mesh and hideous. The new ones are the neonest neon yellow imaginable, solid fabric, with a bunch of orange reflective strips. Totally worse than the old ones, but cleaner, since they're new. I also interviewed at the same school, with the principal who hired me, for a library media services position, and the interview went well. I know I won't get it if another applicant has library experience, or if the principal (whose name is Clyde Curley -- how awesome is that?) wants to avoid having to re-hire to replace me in the job I'm currently doing. Otherwise, I have a shot. It's 6 hours a day, which means benefits, and pays better per hour. I could actually start saving up some money if I got this job, instead of continually dipping into the savings to make rent. That would be awesome, so please think lovely thoughts on my behalf.
and, naturally, I've been working with hundreds of dirty kids for two weeks, so I'm coming down with a gnarly cold.