Sigh....a long day

It's that time of year again. The week before classes begin. The week in which teachers come in to discover what messes they need to clean.

By messes you may think I am referring to the piles of things that the custodians moved to "clean" your room. In our school, those messes are common. You leave your room in some sort of order. You take down the bulletin boards, box up the contents of your desk (because you were warned that it may be upended in order to be moved), you label all moveable objects so that with prayers and a little luck you may actually get them back. Yes, we deal with these messes. We even expect them.

The OTHER messes we deal with are the ones that plague us every year, yet we never really anticipate them. These are the messes which involve having 33 students in one section and 8 in another, no books for the course you are teaching, too many books for other courses delivered to your room, computers....but no where to put them. These messes are the more frantic ones. Yet somehow, even though we never truly feel ready, we are.

Tonight was unpack your backpack night. This is our second year doing this before school officially begins. It's a little uncommon for a middle school to do this but it's a good thing. I met many students are parents tonight. I didn't feel like I needed to be able to answer quizes about their child as I usually do when Open House is after the beginning of the year. It was nice.

Hot but nice.

No knitting tonight....it's been a long day!