The last couple of weeks have been absolutely crazy. Any normal year ends with chaos and mass confusion, but this one being my very last year at this school made it even crazier.
Two weeks ago, I got really ill at school and ended up going home an hour early . . . on a Friday! I’ve never gone home sick before. I have stayed home a couple of times in the last five years due to illness, but I’ve never left early. I was then off on the following Monday and Tuesday, too. I went to the doctor, and she assured me that everything was all right. I wasn’t so sure, but she’s the one with the big bucks and the medical degree, right?
That put me behind schedule. Even being gone one day tends to make me feel like I’ve fallen behind. When I return to the classroom, I go over the lessons that she did, the work the kids did, and figure out what still needs to be done. It’s so much easier to go to work when I’m sick than it is to have a sub fill in. It’s sad, but true! No wonder teachers are working even when they’re sicker than a dog. We are a pathetic lot sometimes! Heh.
I’ve been going through my cupboards, emptying them out because Patsy is moving into my room for next year. Instead of having three third-grade classes, there will be two. The wall between Katy’s and my classrooms is a folding wall. Patsy is across the hall from me. If she didn’t move into my room, a different class would be in there, and she and Katy wouldn’t be able to open the wall and have the whole room to work with. We do that all the time. We have the whole third grade together at times for Science and other things. So, she’s moving into my room so that they still have that capability. She loves her room, though. So do I! I was supposed to be in that room, but she has seniority, so when she came to third grade, she (unknowingly) bumped me from the room. She’s trying to get used to not having the storage space. She’ll be fine!
I’m a procrastinator. Patsy’s not. That means that I got all my stuff out of the drawers and cupboards—a little at a time—and ended up putting the junk on the counter and on empty desks. Now it’s spread out all over the place. I keep going through the piles, widdling things down. It’s so hard to choose what to take with me and what not to take. I don’t want to get to Georgia and slap myself for not having brought something that I’ll need. I’m such a packrat. It’s pathetic. This move is good for purging out the junk that I have, though! I’m trying to stick to the rule that if I haven’t looked at it in more than 3 years (that’s how long I’ve been in my current room), then I probably don’t need it! It’s working to a certain extent, but I’m still having some issues. Heh.
The hardest part is the little things that don’t really have a place—certain papers and knick-knacks and gifts students have given me and this and that. It’s amazing how much one can accumulate in five years! Imagine me in another five years. No, don’t go there! It’s too scary.
I have a fish tank with two gold fish. One is a big gold one and the other is a smaller “calico” kind of gold fish. Their names are Goldy and Sparkles, both named by the students. They were totally ecstatic when I told them that I would be sending the fish home with one or two of them. I just can’t take the fish with me to Georgia. I brought one with me from Wisconsin to California, and he died the morning after we arrived at our destination. I care too much about those beautiful and friendly little creatures to put their little lives at risk. I sent home a permission slip with the kids so that I knew the parents really were okay with it. Four kids returned it. All of them had marked that they would take one or both of the fish, so I drew two names, sending one fish home with each. All four kids would have given Goldy and Sparkles a good home. I’m a little sad to be giving up my fish. I never thought I’d be a fish person, but I really do grow attached to the little suckers. I’ll miss them. Heh.
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