Craziness!!

Today was the last day of school this year. My former district ended 2 weeks ago, so these last 2 weeks have been looooooooonnnnnnnng and torturous. Everyone (including me) was feral and ready to be done. We finally made it though, and wouldn't you know it, there was crazy involved.

I had a strong feeling this morning that I needed to get to school early. I woke up late, my morning was chaotic, but I just couldn't shake that feeling. So I left before I was entirely ready to go. I got to school about 10 minutes before I usually do. When I got to my door, I thought it looked blurry, and wondered if it was something wrong with my contacts. I opened the door, and a cloud of smoke and electrical fire smell washed over me. I was so scared!

I ran inside (maybe not the smartest thing I've ever done...) and opened the windows. Thank goodness for windows that open. I checked everything I had plugged in, and none of the outlets were hot and none of the cords looked burned. I unplugged everything anyway. I then ran to get our assistant principal (our principal was out today for his daughter's wedding) and she was able to get in touch with the head maintenance guy. Looking back, I wonder why we didn't call the fire department? I have no idea. I blame the last day of school brain.

When the maintenance guy got there within 2 minutes of our call, he went through my room too. He also found nothing, which was a huge relief. I was afraid that I'd plugged something in that was causing the problem. Whew! 

After he went through my room, he opened the utility closet between my classroom and one of my teammate's. He immediately found the problem. I learned that we each have our own furnace (who knew this school was so fancy!) and the control panel on mine had burned. It was burned beyond recognition. It was twisted grotesquely and looked horrifying. The guy told me that we were probably within minutes of flames. What. The. Heck?!

At that moment, my brain jumped to the feeling I'd had all morning. We were within minutes. MINUTES. Hmmm...maybe like the ten minutes early that I got there?

I am SO glad I listened, even though I was having a *morning*. I'm so glad we were able to get to the problem pretty quickly. I'm so glad that we avoided flames. My classroom would have been destroyed, along with the thousands of dollars of educational things I have in there. Yeah, I don't have that kind of money to toss around, and because just about everything in the room is my personal property, the school insurance wouldn't have covered it and I'd be out of luck. I'm definitely thinking about classroom insurance, if that's a thing.

We were unable to use the classroom for the planned activities. It was still smokey and the smell was awful. Maintenance brought in big fans to suck the smoke out, so that cleared pretty quickly. But the smell didn't lessen at all. Ugh. I'm afraid that a lot of things will need a trip to the cleaner. I have a bunch of Idaho pillows that I made while teaching fourth grade, and they weren't in my office. Nothing in my office was affected because the door was closed and apparently it has a decent seal. But the pillows are on top of the cupboards out in the classroom, so they'll have picked up the electrical fire smell. UGH.

All things considered though, a trip to the dry cleaner for my pillows is a small price to pay considering what could have happened.

I hope I always stop and listen when those thoughts pop up.

Exciting Things!

I have exciting news! I have accepted a third grade position at Henry's Fork Elementary in St. Anthony, Idaho. It's part of the Fremont School District. I am really excited for this change and the opportunities that will arise from it.

Here are some of the things I'm excited for: 

1. Four day week! I can't believe I am lucky enough to move to a district that has a four day schedule. School days go a little longer, which is awesome. I've said for years that I could use an extra hour in the day! We work one or two Fridays a month, but it's a work day and not a student day. So I actually have a chance to enjoy a weekend rather than feeling like I have to go in to make sure I'm caught up.

2. Jeans! I get to wear jeans every day and I don't have to pay to do it! I've always thought it's ridiculous that teachers everywhere don't get to wear jeans regularly. I know the intent is to create a more professional atmosphere, but wearing jeans doesn't make me any less professional when I'm spending time on the floor with my kids in business casual. Jeans just seem more conducive to the job. As a side note, in my former district, I did pay to wear the jeans, because I wanted to support the education foundation who raise money for teacher grants.

3. Prep time! Weird thing to get excited about, right? Not when you're coming from a job where you were lucky to get half an hour once a week. My before and after school hours were filled with meetings, phone calls, etc. so very little actual planning got to happen. I had to stay longer, come in on weekends, or take work home to stay caught up. I actually got to the point where I wasn't willing to do that any longer, because it was taking a toll on my physical and mental health. I always gave 100% while I was there, but once contract hours were up, I had to leave for my own sake. Now I will have almost an hour EVERY DAY. Every. Single. Day. I don't even know what I'm going to do with that amount of time! Okay, yes I do. I'm going to work hard to get things done so that I don't have to come in on non-work Fridays or weekends.

4. Pay raise! I will be making more money at my new job than I am at my current job. That's always a plus! I'd like to be able to get out of debt and then buy a house (to get in more debt, but whatever). 

5. New friends! Everyone I've met at my new school is so friendly and kind. I've been lucky in my current job that I've worked with really fantastic people who have become good friends, and even best friends. It will be good for me to get to know new people though, and this gives me a great opportunity to do that.

6. Not living in the same town I teach in! That may sound weird, but I have a hard time living in the community I teach in. I am the kind of person that needs separation between parts of life. I don't like it when my work life crosses with my personal life, unless it's by my own choice with my friends.

7. Mostly the same curriculum. I don't even have to really learn any new curriculum. They have a different math program, but math is math. The language arts and phonics intervention programs are the same as what I've been teaching. They literally just bought these two programs! I'm going in with a head start, and I hope that I can be a good resource for my new colleagues in using these programs.

8. A bit of a drive. Again, a weird thing to be excited about, but I have my reasons. Right now, it takes me less than five minutes to get from home to work. It's not a lot of time to collect my thoughts and decompress. I will have a bit longer commute now. Honestly, it doesn't really even count as a commute, because it'll be 20 minutes max. But I need my quiet time to just be still. I look forward to the quiet of my drive.

9. Having an on-site counselor. This is HUGE. Kids are experiencing more things earlier in life, and I am just not qualified to help them effectively. I don't have the training for these things! I can be sympathetic and try my best, but it's not the same as a mental health professional. I will have access to someone who IS qualified and I am so excited about that. 

10. The peace of mind I have. This year has been really hard on me. I've experienced a lot of mental and physical health challenges in the past few years, and they seem to have really come to a head this year. I am in almost constant physical pain, my anxiety has been worse, and my overall mental health has suffered. I can't blame work for causing the struggles, but it definitely hasn't helped. There's been a lot more stress and feelings of inadequacy; like I can't do anything right. It's been really difficult. I feel at peace with my choice to leave and seek out new employment. I feel like it is the right thing for me at this point in my life. I've also wondered if maybe all the stress has actually been a tool to help me make the right choice. 

I will be able to get into my new classroom the first week in June. I am planning to keep my decor the same - it's very calming and I think it's lovely. I have started packing things already. I don't want to wait until the last week of school and be stressed about it. I am taking the things I don't currently need. It's also giving me a chance to get rid of anything that is outdated or useless. I'm also taking things that belong to me personally, so that they don't get left behind in the shuffle. Most of the things in my room have come out of my pocket, so I'm taking those. I've been able to sell some things too, which is nice. The biggest challenge will be moving my classroom library. It's huge. Massive. Over 4,000 books. I will need to weed out some that might not be suitable for third grade, but I'll be able to use most of them. 

I can't wait to share my new adventures as they unfold!

A thing that happened...

So a thing happened today that made me stop and think about stuff. I've been really sick and miserable, and just not wanting to do literally anything. I went for three DAYS without reading and if you know me well, you KNOW that's like rock bottom for me. I've had a hard time really getting back into the swing of things, though I've been trying hard. I still don't feel great, but I'm making progress.

Anyway, I was walking down the hallway to the teacher lunch room (I KNOW, people always say to avoid that room like the plague, but you guys. I NEED tall talk after a morning of boogers, bodily functions, drama, tattling, and everything else that goes along with little ones), and I passed a group of first graders. One of them walked past my classroom every day last year, and wouldn't pass without giving me and the other fourth grade teachers a giant hug. Now, this gal is pocket-sized, and just the cutest thing, so her giant hugs are absolutely adorable. Anyway. She gives me her giant hug on my way down to lunch and is all happy. One of her classmates gets into a faceoff with her, puts his hands on his hips and demands to know if I'm her aunt or something. He wants to know why she's always hugging me.

This girl. Oh, this girl!! She puts her hands right back on her hips, faces off with Mr. Snarky, and says in a very loud first grade tiny person voice, "NO, SHE IS TOTALLY ONE OF MY BFFs." And then turned around, got back in line, and went on her merry way. She was not having it. Not even a little. She stood up, made it known that her action was a-okay, and that she was not to be questioned.

This girl is going places, people.

As for me, it made me stop and think. What's really important? I had this dream last night that there was a fire and I lost every single thing I own, and was left completely destitute. It was upsetting. I was kind of out of sorts over it all morning, and then Little Miss M happened, and I realized that I'm the BFF of a pocket-sized first grader, and all is suddenly right in my world.

If you don't have a first grade BFF, I feel sorry for you.