It's Hot

Not so much the temperature outside, though it's been in the upper 70's lower 80's with high humidity and lots of rain. What's hot is my classroom. The AC in the building is broken, $4500 to fix it, and the boss doesn't have the $$$$ to have it fixed. What does this mean? It means lots of sticky, hot, and cranky kids. Unfortunately my classroom happens to be the hottest one in the building due to a few factors.

1. The room is on the 2nd floor. Heat rises. The room below us has 45 kids, who generate quite a bit of heat.

2. Of the three rooms on the 2nd floor, mine has the most kids. My room has 25 kids in it, the room across the hall has 12, the room at the end of the hall has 8.

3. Only 1 of the ceiling fans works in my room. There's an entire 1/2 of my room that gets no air flow.

4. Because my windows are low to the floor, they can only be opened 3 inches maximum. In contrast, the windows on the 1st floor can be opened 12 inches. The windows across the hall can be opened 6 inches, and the windows down the hall can be opened all the way-(18-24 inches).

5. Only 3 of my 5 windows can be opened because the other 2 don't have screens.

So here I teach, in a room that's 76 F in the morning when I come in and by noon it's 89 F. Nap time it drops to 80 F and when they get up and start moving around it shoots back up to anywhere between 84-89 F. Yeah, it's hot in my classroom. I'm actually wishing for snow.

Memorial Day

Instead of a long drawn out post about how we, as a country, have turned a day honoring those who have served and fallen into a day of BBQ's and drinking, I will simply post this picture. A picture says a thousand words...

Making the Pieces Fit

When I started this job, I knew it would take a little while to become acclimated to the new environment. What I didn't count on was that I'd be still acclimating 3 months later.

I'm like a piece of the puzzle that doesn't quite fit. My edges need to be ground down, reshaped, and polished before I fit in the puzzle that is 'the work crowd.' I sit here wondering when my piece will fit, or even if it will fit.

I've spent a lot of nights trying to figure out how to make my piece fit, how to get into the puzzle, how to make it work. I haven't found a way yet, I want to find a way, I desperately want to, but nothing has come to light yet.

Acclimating is not easy. I don't want to acclimate for another 3 months. I hope I don't need to, but if that's the case, then I guess that's the way it is.