Optional in-service Monday. Optional, but @ $210 for the day and free lunch, I figure I can cope with the getting up early. Also I think I’ll have at least a couple of hours to actually work, whereas if I’m at home purportedly working, it’s oh so easy to find a million distractions. At least this way I’m getting paid to avoid working.
Actual work day Tuesday. I don’t THINK there are any “meetings” scheduled for Tuesday. I think it’s just doughnuts in the lounge in the am, with PTA provided lunch at noon, and home in time to nap and skate by 3:45. Oh, and I also have to unpack all my shtuff and hook everything up and make seating charts since our genius gradebook software STILL doesn’t do something as simple as a seating chart. I also have to get all those kids into the clicker software AND the STAR reading testing software. (Wait I have a servant for that sort of shtuff. Phew, at least HE can type if the software import doesn’t work.) And there’s always the whatnot; you know, lesson plans and such, although after all these years, I’m in trouble if I can’t do the first couple weeks in my sleep. Not that I would or anything. Also there is that pesky issue of that new video class I’m “teaching” this year. Hope I’m ready!
Kids start Wednesday. Middle school, year nineteen. Looks like I’m down to a weekend.
So before I get back to why a JUNIOR high gig is the best teaching job evar, I’m going to wrap up the summer.
We’ve been camping a bit this summer, so I’ve been reading a bit more than usual. Plus I just like reading on my NookColor. I have been WORKING the library’s e-book collection. (Tip: I haunt the “Recently Returned” section. Every day. In fact, I think I’ll go check right now… I’m back. Got Columbine, an exhaustive, definitive report of everything, and one for my boy called The Call. Haha.) Since last we talked books, I’ve killed a few more, and found my fave of the summer.
I finished The Professor and the Madman, about the making of the OED. It was pretty good, but I mostly liked it for how he showed how much work went into creating that dictionary. And that one guy who was insane.
I didn’t get to the end of Noise. Started sort of intriguingly, but I just couldn’t get past a distopian future book like this that has pirate tv, but not the ‘net.
SuperFreakonomics disappeared from my Nook before I finished, and I got snaked before I could check it out again.
Messenger sort of disappointed. Sorry, but I called the ending from range. I do love Lois Lowry’s concept of how the world of the future might be broken up into various little societies. I just don’t think she went far enough with either Gathering Blue or Messenger. They both feel half finished to me.
Other books I’ve managed to finish since last time:
Flood.
You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up.
Heart-Shaped Box.
The Maze Runner.
O.4.
The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee.
Guess which one was my fave. It looks like this won’t be the LAST post of summer. Reviews next time.
How was the Maze Runner? That’s on my to-read list.
I liked it a lot. A bit violent, but not so much as Hunger Games. Sort of boy-centered and weird, but I liked how the author invented new slang words for the novel. It still sounds like cussing, but…My boy (now in my class as of today) devoured it and the sequel. I would recommend it. I started the sequel, but my e-library loan ran out before I got very far.