I'm Movin' On Up

The school year is almost over, you know. Tomorrow I have a substitute, because apparently I am going to work on the science curriculum. They've been working on it all year, and I hear that the Basementia teachers are finished with their part. I will pitch in to do what I can, what with not having taught science for 8 years now, and having all those 3 grade levels of math GLEs and 2 grade levels of communication arts GLEs dancing in my head this year. I'm sure I can pull it together in this short amount of time, even though the others who teach it have had all year to work on it. D'ya think?

The last day for the kids is Wednesday. They have an early out. Teachers have to stay until the regular time, and go back on Thursday to check out. I have been preparing my tomb--er---room in Lower Basementia for the past week. I plan to be ready for Thursday, so that I don't even have to go down to my room. I shall have everything gone, and just turn in my keys and gradebook and parent contact log and copies of final exams and summer contact sheet and hoof it on out of there. I'm sure we will have graduation practice at the other building, which will take up some time. So I played the game everybody else does, and took care of all that stuff during the day. If you can't feel superior to 'em, join 'em. That's what I always say.

Yep. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has been holding an 'Everything Must Go' sale. Not so much a sale as a grand giveaway of suicidal proportions. That's what I told a fellow Mathie, "I'd like you to have these books and this oscillating fan that works if you plug it in, even though the switch is broken, and still oscillates, you know, and have these posters while you're at it, since I won't be needing them any more, but don't worry about me, I'm not committing suicide or anything, I just don't have use for these things after Wednesday." I sent my language reproducibles to two different teachers, and gave about 12 games to another, and sent a framed picture of the flag, which every teacher has, to Upper Basementia, to a teacher I figured might want one at home, and I did SELL my mini-fridge to still a different teacher for $25, and I am buying back a TV/VCR combo and two rolly chairs and a computer, because, HEY, I bought them myself with money I earned through an ongoing fundraiser, and I figure I get first and only crack at them because I did all the work.

Then there's the trash. Which is mainly files that I won't be needing now that my program has kind of gone by the wayside. And while I was at it, I cleaned out the whole file cabinet, which I inherited 8 years ago. There was some funky stuff hiding in there. I found a gradebook program on floppy disks. Not so unusual, you might think...except that they were on the 5" floppies, for an Apple IIe computer. I trashed them. Think that's OK? You know how we don't want to throw away valuable school property.

I have some things to straighten out at my main and only building for next year, but that's not such a rush. I can always go up there for a day in the summer. I won't know what to do next year, with only ONE room to get ready, and only ONE faculty meeting to attend, and only ONE gradebook and ONE plan book and ONE faculty handbook and ONE set of discipline and attendance policies, and ONE administrator to answer to, and ONE building to collect donations from me. Gosh! It will be like a year of half-days. Or not.

This may take some getting used to.