First Day of School for the Potatoes

(In a successful attempt to procrastinate doing “work from home,” I am blogging about today’s events.)

Today was my 2^nd day of work, but first day of school for the little potatoes. (My dad calls kids “small potatoes,” so it’s kind of caught on for me. Random: Daddy safely arrived in Shanghai today.) I have to admit it was kind of exciting. The intercom system is through the phone system so shortly after the bell rang, the Principal greeted all of the students and led us in the flag salute. I felt kind of silly b/c there is no flag in my room and I ran to my doorway and didn’t see a flag, but I silently recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

The rest of the day was still humming with excitement. The custodians were in and out of my office quite a lot today, helping me move my furniture around and bringing in new (old) ones. All the while, a lot of cross-talk on their walkie-talkies consisted of stuff like, “[so-and-so] is headed towards the 20s corridor” (implying that so-and-so was up to some shady business) followed by someone responding w/ an interception and leading the student to the classroom. Someone also radioed Boss (the head custodian) early on that someone already tagged in the boys’ restroom (I think they suspect it’s the same perpetrator as the previous year).

A word about Boss. The PM custodian calls the AM custodian, Boss, b/c he is the Head Custodian. Boss reminds me of BF’s friend E5 b/c of their physical features (e.g., same body build, tattoos) and they both smoke Marlboros. Boss was extremely helpful as was PM custodian. Boss saw me beating the nasty dust out of a stained office chair outside of my office when he said, “hold on…” and came back and assembled a NEW chair for me! (Hey, every little thing counts!)

PM custodian moved all of my heavy file cabinets around (and even moved one to the new place and then back to the old place, when we realized it wouldn’t work well b/c of a phone jack). But before he could move my file cabinets, I had to clear ALL the junk on top and around them.

They also let me keep the old desk (yay!) and brought me another one (Boss convinced me that I would need another work station; Psych said it’s better for me to have more furniture and request to move it out later than to not have any and want it. Word to burger.)

The tech guy stopped by and said he found me a computer and printer (and was taking away 2 printers in my office). He also explained that the internet along the entire corridor was not working…and he confirmed my fear – the networking box was broken so once it is fixed, it will emit even more heat! Ah! Actually, today wasn’t so bad. I worked in front of my small but powerful fan. I didn’t think it was too bad (until I went to other people’s rooms and sat in their cool, refreshing A/C).

Oh, I did ask the Principal, “Oh, is there anyway that the A/C can get fixed in here?” She looked up at the so-called vent and said, “Oh, it's not working? I’ll tell [the Office Manager].” Hm. I realized today that I’ve got some potentially good moral support on the room situation, though. A teacher stopped by and introduced herself…and then told me that I definitely need to request for a fan or A/C or something (since I am technically not a District employee, but a County employee). The psych also politely told the Principal that my room may not be large enough for group therapy. Boss brought in my kidney table and then we both decided that it was too large. :( I am hoping that by the time I arrive tomorrow (after 2 meetings), I will have a computer and printer set up and a smaller round table instead of a kidney table.

Oh, the other fun thing about today is that I got to "shop"! I ordered a few supplies from my District budget. It'll probably take a month or so to get here, though. :( I hope I get a County budget for materials, too, b/c most of the manipulatives are ancient, man. I must've washed my hands at least 20x today b/c of all the dust, cobwebs, and spiders (I killed 2 more today and 1 was already dead).

Lastly, I met the previous SLP and she was a doll. I have to admit that I don't think my very first impression of her (from yesterday's brief staff meeting) was all that positive, but she stopped me in the hall today and introduced herself and welcomed me to meet with her. She was soOOOoOOOOOoOOOoo helpful! I really feel very fortunate that she is on campus and willing to help me...since I still don't know who my CF supervisor is. :(

Hopefully, my office will look even cleaner by the end of tomorrow. It's a hard, working progress.

Oh, point of clarification: my hours are tentatively 7 to 2 (although it's more like 7AM to 4 or 5PM for now) b/c my contract says, "the unit member shall not leave the assigned site less than seven hours, including a half-hour duty-free lunch..." So technically, my work days are 6.5 hours! But like I said, they're more like 9 or 10 hour days since I do working lunches (well, the whole 2 days I have been working). Come to think of it, today will be more than 10 hours since I still have some work to do after I post...So theoretically, this is a great job; realistically, for the first few months, it is tiring and challenging as I climb the steep learning curve, but it has a good pay-off later. :)