One week from RIGHT NOW, the first day of school will already be over...

... and isn't that a rather terrifying thought?

I arrived this morning at 8:00 am after a terrible night's sleep. It's finally hot here in San Diego, and the air was so heavy last night that I kept waking up. At 7:15 when my phone alarm went off, I decided to cut my losses on my sleeplessness, get up, get dressed, and head to school, where at least there, there is air conditioning.

As soon as I stepped into my room and my lights were blinking on, I knew something was afoot in my classroom. All twas not as I left it ... and then, in a twinkling, I realized what it was: those promised five extra desks to accommodate for 40, the size of my biggest class, had arrived. And those sneaky custodians *tried* to add them to already-existing rows, as if I *might* not notice there were now FORTY desks crammed into my classroom. But I did. And promptly went to work depositing everything I was carrying into the classroom onto the floor and rearranging the furniture. I now have essentially the same layout as I ended last year with, just with some extra rows. Four rows of three on each the left and right sides of my room, six rows of two along the back of the room, and two rows of two in the smack middle. So, weirdly, it doesn't look that overwhelming right now, but of course, once there are 40 junior-sized humans in ALL of those desks, I'll be singing a VERY different tune. But silver lining (which I must attempt for my own sanity): now that the desks have actually appeared, I have dealt with them, have a room arrangement I can deal with right now, and can stop worrying about it and move on.

After I did that, I set to work making my blackout curtains. Apparently, my at-home cutting job that I thought I'd botched was perfect (or, well, perfect enough) and all I had to do was heat up my hot glue gun and glue the very strong magnets to the corners. The bonus I discovered later? The blacking out of the sun through the door-windows also helped keep my classroom cooler, which, on a 100 degree day, is clearly a bonus.

Since then, I've done a myriad of things, including:

* going through a few giant piles to sort for "keep" and "recycle," gone through about fifteen random spiral notebooks (taking up now-important real estate on one of my bookshelves) to either recycle, annex, or keep them.
* unpacking the two boxes of random books and materials I had taken home and brought back today, which then necessitated rearranging a bookshelf to accommodate everything.
* Moving a few storage options around (and cleaning them off... ew).
* Going through and purging old Speech and Debate trophies (I am using 'classroom real estate' as my excuse for actually getting rid of Speech trophies garnered while I myself was a high school student ... ) and then dealing with the ones I can't really throw away because they've been earned during my tenure as Speech and Debate coach.
* killing many ants and not quite yet discovering their origin...
* unwrapping six new rulers
* dusting the top of my metal cabinet (um. ew. I'm pretty sure some of that stuff up there was ask from the fires ... )
* making labels for the four magnetic pockets I bought at Lakeshore this summer (which, if they work, are officially my new favorite part of my classroom organizational strategy...)

I also met a former student, who leaves for college on Friday, for a bagel and schmear at a local bagel chain, and chatted for about two hours. It was a lovely break in my disgusting work of cleaning and dusting and organizing.

Currently, I'm sitting at my teacher desk, it is 4:09 pm, and I am trying to decide if I want to start another project (basically all that is left is what I'm writing this blog entry to avoid: The Filing Cabinet Organization Project of 2010), or, head home, flop on the couch and watch some TV before starting said hideous project tomorrow. But there's A/C here. And not at home. Right now, working here is winning, which, sad though it is, at least is productive.

I'm feeling my second wind coming on ... let's see how much I can get done before my tummy tells me I HAVE to leave so that I can feed myself.