Summer Suspended

To return in approximately one month.

(I knowww I proclaim to be all "Don't wish your life away," but please let this month zoom by!)

My self-doctoring plan worked. I stayed in bed (for the most part) and ate little (for the most part) for 36-hours, and I am doing better today. I am not at 100% "healed," but I haven't been 100% gastro-healthy since my pre-teen days.

Over the weekend, I saw that some teacher friends were already making new Pinterest Board for "Back to School" nights and teaching next year and I scoffed, "Nerds!" Of course, before the dawn had fully set on the current teaching year, I too fell into the black hole of Pinterest and spent the greater part of my bed-ridden hours pinning ideas for school. I had planned to just clean-up and organize my  boards (That counts as being productive, right?), but then I got side-tracked by ideas for decorating...

 

I have a row of three filing cabinets that sit right behind my desk. They are the direct-visual upon entering the room. I would love to snazz them up like this, but looking at how the handle is on them today, I just don't know if it could work neatly.

I also looked at several ideas, even followed the links to read the blog posts (That's serious pinning there!) on ideas about taming paperwork. Paperwork in my albatross. To be an English teacher, the one that "makes kids write," I am quite ironically H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E about paper work, even attendance. And these days in teaching, there is a whole lot more paperwork on this side of this desk than that which goes across to the student desks.

Although it would be ADDING to the paperwork, not taming it, I am going to reflect the next few months over something like this- a "No Homework Form." I would mean changing my policy from No Late Work to Late Work for half-credit, but it's something worth considering. Of course, cheating on homework versus not doing it was the greater problem this past year. So, this would be like building an aquarium to house the chickens (yeah... no idea where that metaphor came from.)

 

I also added a board for classroom memes, cartoons, and videos. (This meme is sooo me, as my students would tell you!) I am deluded into thinking this will make me the "Cool Teacher" (not really), but it's a good façade for using technology in the classroom, right? (Ok, not really to that either.) 

I also found lots of general teaching material on units in literature, grammar, writing, vocabulary, and made a few other specific boards related to topics in my class. Now, time will tell if it becomes the Pinterest Dust Bowl, to be found during a pinning frenzy marathon... never to be looked at again (again) (again)....

Back on track.

So... went to Fred's for breakfast with the fam and then back up to high school to finish cleaning and packing my room. Summer School registration ended today at 3 so I was spacing out my tasks to stretch until then and figure out if/what class I had to get prepared for tomorrow's first day (short, sad, fleeting nonexistent break it has been).

Well, pretty sure I know what it feels like to be evicted now. Our custodians were all business. I could not get a desk cleared without them clearing it out of the room. I seriously thought I was going to be wheeled out on a dolly at one point (or three). Usually, I remove nearly all wall hangings too but since Cameron wasn't available to monkey around on desks to reach them, I have left them be for this summer.

I did not get exactly the Summer School class I wanted, which would have made for much longer, and much more stressful days... but more bank. The class I do have lets out at 12:30 though, which means I really need to not succumb to the "Summer Suspended" attitude I have already proclaimed and still make something out of the days ahead!


On a completely, unrelated note, once I finally laid Pinterest to rest last night, I was checking out the snark on GOMI ("Get Off My Internets") and adding all of their targets to my blog roll, which is totally counter to their purpose and I came across "Hey Natalie Jean."

I am utterly head over heels in love with this chick and her blog. I want to be her sister, her neighbor, her friend... her. This is the kind of newfound obsession that breeds stalkers. She says that her blog is
"a love letter from me to my family and from my family to New York City." (My alter-ego lives in a very small apartment in a very tall building in NYC. And she is very important in the best-selling fiction world of publishing... Reminding myself of why I do not allow students to use the word "very.") Anyway, I can overlook her refusal to use the shift key (annoying) (very annoying) because she is just the bohemian open-minded, free-spirited, adventurous embodiment of New York that I adore.

I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night reading through her old posts (stalker status, indeed)... and would do the very same again tonight if it were not for that blasted Summer School alarm going off in the morning.