really really really
yes!
It’s time to exit
while still fresh
I can go
so why not
taught loads of kids
wiped lots of snot
gained a daughter
laughed a ton
made new friends
I feel I’ve won
WOOT WOOT
A Poem for Poetry Month!
Category: Education
A jumble of goodness.
At the dinner table we always share a “highlight of the day”. This December we’ve had so many highlights. Here are a few:
Oyster Bay Chardonnay from NZ and Sanders caramels from Costco.
I solicited the help of a wee kindie to assist in making a sample piece of artwork for our craft day next Friday. She was all painted up and gleeful to be in the P office on the rolling chair. I just love the positive energy of the little ones. “I can do it missakenzie!” when I was about to squirt some paint into a tray, and afterwards, shrieking “the soap is green!” when washing the green paint off of her hands. Joyful moments.
A follow-up a call from the receptionist at my Endodontist. She told me that she worked something out. What? What do you mean? Well, I wanted to do something, so I … let me just work this out … instead of $2505.00 per tooth… it will be $1791.00. Um … what?? Why would you do that?
“I just wanted to do something.”
I have no idea if how she managed to do it. How she might have approached her boss and explained our situation – with Bree not able to be on my medical plan and the Healthy Smiles program not covering repairs on root canals. ‘It takes a village to raise a child’.
My staff coming together time and again to make school an awesome place for the kids – so much evidence of their efforts in December! Happy kids performing at our outdoor Christmas Concert, kids participating in a full day of creative crafting, sledding sessions on the hill, the creation of gorgeous center pieces, spirit days, secret Santa … the list goes on and on. For me it all comes down to my staff. They are willing to pull together and go the extra mile for the kids. And it shows.
Each year our good friends Michael and Deborah invite us over to decorate Christmas cookies and share a meal. They make a point of inviting different families to participate each year. This year they invited the Syrian family that they’ve been sponsoring. It was a lovely afternoon and I was grateful that my children had the opportunity to connect with Nour and Hashem and their children.
My brother is home from his work gig in the U.K. It was the first time in eons that all three of us were together for Christmas. So special!
It’s Going to be a Tough Re-boot
The other day I went to log-in to my Word app on my own iPad, and alas, I’d forgotten my work login. Worked away at it for a while, considering all different iterations of passwords I have used in the past. It was … just outside of my ability to remember it. I gave up and slept on it. Didn’t help. I texted my BFF who has come to the school to help me sort things on my own systems (and consequently had access to my password – ya, ya, bad practice, I know…) and she couldn’t remember it (no, seriously!). I then called the HelpDesk … and … I forgot the extension for the HelpDesk! They said that the system had been down and to re-try. Nope. Farted around some more and FINALLY found it by going through my computer’s stored passwords.
I. WAS. WAY. OFF.
I’m going to have to scale back on the mojitos and nurse my tech brain back to health.
Summer Ruminations
It’s now August and all Educators begin having school dreams. (I say dreams, but they are not generally pleasant …). No matter the devices we use for keeping school-related thoughts at bay (travel, trashy novels, alcohol … to outline the obvious), they still come. These trigger subtle changes in our foci. When it’s raining we find ourselves thinking about indoor recess, when we hear a great swear-free song we make a mental note – or even hit Shazam and save it. As a P, I find myself collecting various sized pinecones for the Kindies to sort and birchbark pieces for the investigation. I buy EUC books for classroom libraries from online buy&sell sites (EUC stands for ‘excellent used condition’, FYI). And so it goes. I can’t help myself and neither can any other Educator in the world.
The summer is essentially over for us. We’re becoming serious about buying swearing stationary.
As a P of course I think about (stress about) different things than a teacher or EA or CYW would. We all have massive lists in our heads – they are just different. Mine include Who’s up for a TPA (teacher performance appraisal)? I need to learn about the Core French curriculum. Did I book the Consultant to come in? Oh crap I have a student EA starting on the first day. What about the playground? Crap, I need to paint the climbers, paint games on the pavement, buy benches & urns for flowers so the parents can chill closer to the school and not feel left out.The teaching schedules need some tweaking. The PA day is looming … must plan that with the SIP in mind – oh Jesus. When am I going to plan that? Oh, and I still have my summer (professional) reading to do. And so it goes.
And somehow, in the midst of all of this important thinking, pushing on my frontal lobe is that the memo for our first P mtg that said to wear ‘summer casual’. WTF? I have so many questions about that statement.
Best to return to my summer classic. A truly odd book, The World According to Garp, but one that feel obliged to read and makes some sense of before I bone up on proportional reasoning.