Getting Started, year 12

First day of in-service training was today. I took absolutely every day of the summer for myself and my family. On the last day of my professional duties in June, I turned in the key to my classroom, got in my car, picked up my family, and drove to the beach. After a week getting into summer mode by the sea, we launched on a six week tour of California and New England, hiking, swimming, reading, playing, sleeping, cooking, eating, doing whateverthehellIwant... It was amazing. I arrived home last night happy and refreshed, and today barely made it to school in time for our continental breakfast and staff introductions. As it is entirely inappropriate to retire at the age of 41, I guess it's time to get back to work.

It was great to see my colleagues who have become friends. It's a diverse group of men and women in all stages of their careers. All fundamentally good people. All characters. There are over 100 people on staff. After two years, I can say I know over half of their names.

This is my third year at My School, and the grime and disfunction I found so disturbing during my first year is now just comfortable background noise. I find the fact that the staff bathroom has a quarter inch of water on the floor and a broken stall door charming. The missing ceiling tiles and the worn rugs are just part of the ambiance. The broken AC, however, is not cute. We are experiencing an extended heat wave, and there was another heat advisory issued today. The index was in the 100s. The cafeteria felt oppressively humid and stuffy, but when I went to my classroom it was literally an oven. When I opened the door, I felt a blast of heat. After a few minutes the cheese on my sandwich started to melt. After an hour of shoving desks around, the water in my bottle was warm enough to steep tea. I left when I started to feel nauseous.

Two years ago I would have rushed to the office to inform someone about the problem. (Surely, no one knows about this. If they KNEW it would be fixed, right?) Today I didn't bother. When I happened to see the head of maintenance in the hall, he looked exhausted himself, and said, "Yeah, the whole building is out. It's a mess. I'll put in a work order." Which is code for, "Buy a fan."

After 12 years of preparing for the first day of school, and after a summer of serenity, I am not panicking as I once would. If the AC doesn't come on, we'll figure it out. If my classroom library isn't set up on the first day, I'll have the kids do it in teams. There is no such thing as perfection in this business. It's all process.