Hey! I have 5, five, count them, 5 days off in a row! And I don't have to go anywhere except to my favorite supermarket to get the bird, and then to church Thursday a.m. to play ancient acolyte. Of course I have grandiose plans that either 1., I will ignore in order to read, or 2., I will actually carry out and therefore be too tired to go back to work next Monday. Either way, I win. Happy day. I may not even do the dishes tonight.(Why do I always feel guilty when I leave the dishes and have to explain/excuse it? Some leftover fear of my mother, I guess...or my Auntie S.) I actually had some time to plan my next big training today. When I wasn't running around trying to get the p-and-p procedure and equipment straightened out. Why is it, wherever I work, I get the puke-and-poop patrol in some form or another? In the first center I taught in, I was the only one who could do the clean-up of the p-words without adding to the mess. (At least, that's what they all warned me and I didn't want to chance that they might really do it.) Then I became director of a whole center full of people who couldn't do the p-word stuff and I cleaned up there. I really thought I had graduated from that position until our maintenance man was out one day and nobody thought they could possibly clean up after a sick child. They called him in from another building to do it! So, I have been writing procedures, finding plastic bags and hazardous waste cans for the classrooms, the gym, the parent room, etc., for two days. And guess what, classroom teachers, YOU have to clean up if our faithful maintenance man is out of the building! I know that's heresy, but that's the way it is. This wouldn't be such a problem if we weren't so woefully short of maintenance just now. Usually there is someone around to do the deed. Somehow I have been put in charge of keeping maintenance on their toes. Our program manager just can't deal with them. Their actual supervisor is in the North Country, but someone has to be sort of a liaison on site. That translates to "someone has to sweet talk them into doing their jobs". I think it's my white hair that gets me into these things. After all, anyone who has lived as long as I obviously must have, can handle recalcitrant mm's, goes the thinking. It wasn't really what I thought being the Staff Development Manager would look like. Oh well, at least I'M not cleaning up the p-stuff. But the planning went well, inspite of all this. I have been reading Thomas Armstrong's "7 Ways to Be Smart", which is based on Gardner's Multiple Intelligences (which are now 9, I believe). The book is written for anyone, not just education people, and has lots of fascinating little quotes, anecdotes, and exercises that can be used in my workshops. My next workshop is the first Friday in December, so I have a few days to get it ready. Usually, I have to pull a training out of the hat in just a couple days. This is a real luxury!
Lyra sent me a page from someone's journal that describes her relationship with her older sister who was 15 when she was born. It was very close to my own experience as the older sister. I wonder if my baby sister feels that I was "scary"? She talks about thinking she had two mommas and even now she gets confused in her thinking sometimes. Ha! I know about that. How many times have I referred to my daughter as "my sister"? I guess I AM scary!
next~
home~
~ Collaborative ~
Archives ~
Journal ~