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Friday, August 31, 2007

TGIF

I promised myself that I would post something (anything!) everyday, so here I am. Sadly, I'm so completely exhausted, this is going to be very short and sweet. OK, short. The good news is it's Friday, on a holiday weekend. The bad news is I'm still not finished with what I wanted to do in my classroom, so I'll be at school tomorrow. But, it's my own darn fault for not getting everything done during the past 3 days. I spent far too much time socializing and catching up with colleagues about what they did over the summer. Now I'll have to pay for it by going into school on Saturday. (On a side note, due to my socialization skills (?), I'm the Social Committee Chairperson at our school. The entire staff refers to me as a social butterfly, and they decided, unanimously, years ago that I should be the committee chair. The funny thing is, I've been the chair, or at least a member, of the Social Committee at every school I've ever worked at, so maybe they're on to something.)

I've also promised myself, after 2 days of posting complaints :( , that I would put at least one positive thing here everyday. Today we received our prep/lunch schedule for the new school year. I nearly cried tears of joy! A couple of teachers took over the scheduling for this year, and they could not possibly have done a better job. This will be the first year at this school that we will be getting a prep period everyday. The kindergarten schedule, in my opinion, is the best of all of them. My partner teacher agrees. Our prep period immediately follows our lunch, so we have an 80 minute break right in the middle of the day!! We couldn't have planned it better ourselves. Our lunch periods, schoolwide, have been changed this year from 20 minutes to 30 minutes (I have no idea how they got away with that, since all CPS schools have 20 minute lunches, but I don't care either!) so that was just icing on the cake! Now that I've taken this time to write about it, I'm happy all over again, and it doesn't seem so bad that I'll be there tomorrow :)

I'm aware of the fact that the non-teachers out there will wonder why they just wasted time reading today's post, but I know my teacher friends will relate, and can appreciate my feelings. We don't ask for much as teachers (certainly not when it comes to salary!) so it's the little things, like our preps, that can make all the difference for us. Yeah, I guess that's pretty lame, but sadly, it's true.

Hmmm, I guess this wasn't short after all. I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday weekend with friends and family. Thanks for stopping by!

Today's quote:
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in
it.
--Margaret Fuller

4 comments:

Me said...

20 minute lunch? That's it?!?! That's not even enough time to heat up a hot pocket and finish a can of diet coke! I'm so glad that you got that extra time. Can you even go home for some of it?

ChiTown Girl said...

No, all CPS schools are closed campus, for both students and teachers. And, I live more than a 20 minute drive from school anyway. Lunches have always sucked. That 20 minutes is TOTAL lunch period time. We have to get the kids to the lunchroom, they have to go through the lunch line, walk to their seats, scarf down the slop they call "lunch," and be back in line all within that 20 minutes. The poor babies probably only have 5-7 minutes to actually eat. At least now, they'll have 10 more minutes to actually eat their food. As far as our lunches, almost nobody bothers to try and eat during that time, because we have to drop the kids off, run to the bathroom (it's usually the only time we can go, especially if we don't have a prep that day! Ooo, I just remembered we're getting a prep everyday this year!! It seems more like a big deal now, huh?) shlep to the teachers' lounge, try to consume something and be back to the lunchroom before the kids are sent out into the hallway at the end of their 20 minute time slot. It was ridiculous! 10 minutes doesn't sound like much, but believe me, it's going to make a world of difference to all of us!

Me said...

How the hell do you (and the students) not have serious indigestion problems? Do you keep tums and pepto in your purse at all times?

ChiTown Girl said...

No, but I tend to keep lots of chocolate around, which would account for my Englewood booty!! Truth be told, I have it better than most because our kids have rest time everyday after lunch, so that's usually when I eat my lunch. I sit at my desk, in the dark, while they nap. Most of the others just wait and eat during their prep period, of course while trying to get work done!