Terra Firma

I am so happy.

I am, finally, in a classroom on the ground floor, near the rest of my team, and it even has air conditioning.

Okay, so the fact that it is completely covered with boxes is a small detail that I will fix tomorrow (yes, teachers do work on Saturdays). However, I am happy. I am on the ground.

We did The Big Move today and the new wing is open, complete with the new, state of the art science lab. The nine of us that teach science were basically standing there with our jaws hanging open when we saw it. It is beautiful. I can't wait to get in and use it, but it will be some time before that happens. We have to, in the meantime, round up all the science equipment we hid and stashed all over the building when we were without a lab (I had Mr. Bones, the skeleton for a year and the kids never knew.). We need to inventory, get rid of stuff we don't need, put away stuff we want, and then we can use it.

The student council members stayed after (they were working the dance anyway) and moved all the various teachers from room to room to room. Granted, they will do just about anything for pizza. It went a lot easier than I thought it would. Some of my kids from last year helped, plus some of my current crop. I had my room pretty much emptied and moved downstairs (remember, there's no elevator, just steps) in an hour or less. We did have to move the desks that were left into storage, and my tables and chairs were rolled in, thanks to some PTO parents and a few of my Skateboard Squirts.

My big, nearly new Steelcase desk, as well as my nearly new file cabinet, are still upstairs but I sweetalked The Janitor (who is truly one of the nicest and most helpful people I know) and he will be bringing it down sometime Monday evening. I also have a very nice cabinet with a glass display case that's stuck in a hallway (rescused from a previous science lab) that will be moved in sometime later in the week as well. I'm a bit weird about keeping my nearly new stuff. When I started a few years ago, I was a new position, so I got all new equipment. I will probably never ever get anything new again, so I'm hanging on to as much of it as I can.

So tomorrow...I unpack.