Today was: Unconventional

Miles was way underprepared for today. He spent most of the morning before school running around, getting things ready for the day. Plus, he sprung on me, at the last possible moment, "Oh, so there is this meeting on assessment that I have to go to all afternoon with the other kindergarten teachers. There will be a sub from after lunch through to the end of the day." Then, one of the kindergarten teachers comes into the room and says, "SO, it looks as though they only hired two subs. I'm going to have to send half of my kids [Spanish speakers] down to your room for the afternoon." This pretty much threw off the perfectly planned Math lesson that I had come up with for the afternoon. I looked at Miles and said, "Could I sit in on the meeting?" He suggested it would be a good idea, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Since Miles was so backed up, I spent the first 30 minutes of the day in the copy room, making copies of a handout about Parent Conferences [they are NEXT WEEK] that the kids took home today, and a packet of Math worksheets [shh, don't tell...] that we threw together so that the sub would have something to do with the kids during Math time [because I got to be OUT OF THE ROOM!]. Halfway through the printing of the Math worksheets packet, the stupid copy machine decided to get all clogged and busted. The copyroom has no windows, is on the first floor of the school, and the WHOLE first floor of the school is unbelievable SWELTERING. Upstairs, the teachers have to put on sweaters because the air-conditioning works overtime, but downstairs, we MELT. I think that I mentioned the other day that I can't STAND being hot. [When you are cold, I say, you can always start layering up, but when it's hot, you can only strip down so far, and you are STILL hot.] So there I am, in the copyroom, it's hot, there are no windows, the copier is malfunctioning, I'm missing the first part of the day with the kids, and because it's SO hot and the copier is being TEMPERMENTAL, I'm starting to get really agitated. Eventually, unassisted, I found the source of the problem [a wayward copy crinkled up in some wheels], got through the rest of the copies, and even found time to take a packet of lunch tickets that a teacher had left in the copyroom upstairs to her room [it's wonderfully COLD upstairs!].

The meeting that I went to with Miles [while the substitute did who-knows-what with 30 kids] was stupid and pointless. Miles asked me what I thought of it and I said, "It was stupid and pointless." His response was, "I'm glad someone else thought so." Actually, the meeting was good because it got us out of the classroom, and didn't last the full time, so Miles and I got to sit down for some uninterrupted planning and talking time. We also went over the midterm checklist that he has to fill out for my program. He scored me mostly with 3's [out of 3], with a couple of 2's for things that I haven't really had a chance to work on yet [i.e. "Designs long and short term plans."]. He also looked over my plans for Math time this week [which is all pushed back and switched around because of today] and was quite impressed. Hopefully, the implementation of the plans will be equally impressive.

3 of the fish in the classroom fishtank have died, and one of them is covered in small white dots - a sure sign that he/she isn't going to last very long and has likely infected the other two fish. Miles went to buy some more after school today.

Miles mentioned that he has tentatively decided to teach at an International English school next year. He said, "Now, we just have to work on getting you my job here." He was serious, and I will do WHATEVER it takes to make this happen. I'm going to try not to get my hopes up TOO high, though.