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Sunday, August 26, 2007

Summer is almost over!

In fact, my first class starts in just over 12 hours. Crap.

Not that I haven't been bored as hell lately, but still.....

And there's not really anything to worry about on the first day, but still.....

And I know that I'll do a good job, but still....

*****

I have a short list of things I need to be doing tonight so I don't have to do them tomorrow, but I'm not doing them. I've tried all my procrastinating techniques: cleaning the house, playing video games, reading all my blogs, and now I'm here (that should say something about the hard-core procrastination I am doing right now). Officially, my excuse is that I need some of the files that are on my jump drive, and I don't know where my keys are, and, hence, my Swiss Army Data Knife thing. Tyson may have them actually, and he's at Wal-Mart with our JVO swimmer getting swim and school supplies.

So too bad, so sad, I guess my homework will just have to wait. Seriously, none of it is for tomorrow, anyway, just stuff I should print up and get to graphics by the end of the day tomorrow. School gets out at 1:15, so I'll have more than an hour before I have to leave, and I will definitely have my keys then, and I will possibly be more motivated.

One thing I am....let's say apprehensive....about is that when I got my rosters on Friday, I had between 40 and 45 kids in each class. That is scary. And I saw some kids wandering around the halls doing whatever kids who come to school a week early do, and they are so huge. I don't know how 45 of us are going to fit in my room. Probably between 5 and 10 each period won't show up, on the first day or ever, but I only have 37 desks in my room. I'm trusting in karma to take care of me on that one; I figure I'm a decent enough human being that things will just "turn out," without me having to worry any more about it. I'm getting tables eventually anyway, and you can always cram one more kid if you have to, if nobody is too particular about their elbow room.

So anyway, I will keep everybody posted about how the first day goes. Right now, in my head, it's going alternately perfect or horrible, but I'm sure it will be somewhere in between.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck!

Unknown said...

You can navigate a kayak alone, in the dark, by moonlight, without getting eaten by rabid coyotes or flesh-eating zombies! Your first day of school should be a piece of cake (the gourmet, from-scratch kind that you are talented enough to know how to bake, by god!).

Knock em dead.

k said...

45 kids? Egads. That is not something I would want to do. How do you learn all their names?

Erin said...

Okay, first, I put them in alphabetical order--by FIRST name. That helps me remember what part of the alphabet they are in based on where they sit in the room (so I can at least make an educated guess), plus kids with the same name are together so I can learn them as a group, and kids with the same names in different classes also sit in the same general area of the room. So all the Caitlyns in one class are together, pretty much, and if I have one in first hour and another in second and another in fifth, well, they are all in the same general area so I can just, like, spatially associate them or whatever.
THEN my very first homework assignment is to make a name tent that is readable from the front of the room. They have to have them out on their desks for the first two weeks of school so I can look at their faces and actually see the name written underneath. It helps me because I am good at remembering things I see written down. Plus, if they are in groups or whatever, they can call each other by name, too, and not feel totally dumb when they've forgotten the name of the person next to them five days in a row.
That's still not as easy as just writing everyone's name on their foreheads with sharpie.