Crazy week. Stressful too. This was suppose to be a different start to the new school year, but everything seems to be playing out like a broken record.
Quick summary because it is very, very late. With relative certainty, I'll be teaching 6th grade this year. With that, I did what I do when I'm nervous about the coming school year, I went shopping.
Yesterday, I went to the teacher's store in Brooklyn. They (in my opinion) have a better selection of middle school materials. The plan was to get there at opening to avoid the crowd. I managed to be the second person to arrive before the store opened up. My plan was just to briefly look at the books --with the idea of not spending more than $100. Well, when I left, I was about $300 poorer. From there, my plan was to go home, drop off the purchased materials and then continue on to the mall to go clothes shopping. But since it was getting late -- the last evening bus from the mall is 7pm. The problem with depending on public transportation is that you have to plan around the bus and/or train schedule. At the mall, I needed to buy some "back to school" clothes for myself. Unfortunately, I tend to wear clothes until they are falling apart. By the time it was time to go, I was about $300 poorer. I caught a few sells, so I was pleased about that. I purchased a couple of pair of shoes, 3 slacks, 5 shirts (three color, and two white), and underwear.
Today (Sunday), the plan was to go to the teacher's store closer to where I live (Lakeshore). Lakeshore is a bigger chain of educational supply stores. I went to try and exchange the 4th grade materials that I had purchased. I thought it might be difficult to exchange, but it was very easy. I just said that I wanted to exchange....Before I finished my sentence, the person behind the counter just said, "don't worry, I can help with your refund." I also went to use their laminating machine. Wow, it was very convenient. It was a bit annoying waiting on the line. I was a bit annoyed at a couple of people on the machine when I arrived. One lady was moving as slow as molasses, another lady was making her (center) signs while she was using the machine. One lady on line complained about how slow the line was moving, and yet, when she got to the machine, she had about 15 or 20 hand-made charts that she was planning to laminate. AND, she was picking through her pile trying to decide what she wanted. The lady in front of me was nice, but she seemed a bit old. Not that there's anything wrong with an older person teacher. I just thought she seemed a bit out of it. Not to mention the very old poster she was laminating. It must have been from the 70's. The poster was of an African-American family (with Afros) sitting around and reading. Behind me, there was a guy complaining loudly about his new teaching assignment and how he wasn't spending any money now. He said he might spend some after he assesses his students. When it came my turn to use the laminating machine, to be fair, I offered to use it for 5 minutes, then I would let the next person use it. And then use it for another five minutes, and then let the next person go, etc... After laminating, I went to briefly look through the materials for 6th grade materials. And, I ended up leaving about...$300 poorer. Since I had to travel by bus, I decided to cut and trim the decorations and posters so that they would be easy to carry. It ended up taking about 2 hours of cutting. When I finished, I discovered that about 1/3 of the items didn't laminate properly. At first when I went the the person behind the counter, the manage was about to say it was my fault that I didn't have the machine on hot enough. However, when one of the cashiers mentioned to him that another person had the same problem earlier, he went straight to the machine, and tried to solve my problem. I was impressed that despite the crowd, when the manager said that he would return in a couple of minutes, he actually did! He used one of the two laminating machines that was broken to feed in my posters and decals one by one until the heat melted the plastic lamination. AND for my time wasted, he gave me 3 coupons for free laminating (15ft. each).
No exercising today. I hadn't eaten anything since I had a can of V8 this morning, so I was hungry. I went to Wendy's restaurant on the way home. I was thinking that a 1/2 lbs burger and medium fries would fill me up. NOPE! While I was waiting for the try, I ate the fries. I finished off the hamburger minutes later. I avoided the soda because I know it has a lot of calories. The strange thing was that it felt like I had eaten a White Castle burger. I was ready for dinner. I settled on a Healthy Choice sweet and sour chicken meal. I also drank a liter of ShopRite Zero Carbs and Calorie Free Sugar Free and Caffeine Free soda.
Well, that is ....
Oh, I almost forgot. I just finished looking at the materials that were in my Amazon.com shopping cart. When I first found out I would be teaching 4th grade, I went online to purchase 4th grade copies of the 3rd grade versions that I liked. Well, when I found out I would be teaching 6th grade, I did the same thing. Luckily, I was able to delete some of the items since I had already purchases them. In the end, I spent about another $200. My credit card is smoking like a five alarm fire. But there is one more thing I really, really, need to get.
Even more than a decent photocopy machine, I need a grading machine. My school is very, very big on "Data Driving Instruction". I was drowning in paperwork last year. I will lose my mind if I have to try to keep up with testing paperwork again this year. This machine (and others like it) can do in about 30 seconds, what it would take me 2 hours or longer to do (grade a class set of a single test AND provide a data analysis for each student).
Now, I think that's it...
