Wednesday, August 24, 2011

4th grade!

Z started 4th grade today, he was happy & anxious to go back to school. even though last year was a rough one, he was looking forward to going back [& boy were we thankful we didn't have that battle as well!].

we had a good summer although we didn't do a whole lot & we didn't really go anywhere. after the year end he didn't go to the same summer camp so we found another place for him to go which he ended up liking much better. they had different programs where he could do art, play indoor games, outside time or computer time. all around it seemed a good fit for him & we didn't receive one call or notification about improper behavior. it was grand let me tell you!

Z's new teacher was moved down from 5th grade. she's tough, but caring & is all about teaching the kids about being responsible for themselves. in the first couple of days he came home & was making an effort to no longer say "yah" but "yes". at back to school night she told me Z had a little melt down the first day of school, but he was able to pull it together. i told her he had specifically been placed in her class, which she wasn't aware of. i also told Z said he already felt like this year was going to be much better than last year & he liked her better than last year's teacher.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

working girl

my first day of work was 7/19 after not working for just over 2 years. to say the least, working a 40 hour week kicked my butt...big time. i think i'm in pretty decent shape but everything would hurt, i was exhausted every day & the weekends were for sleeping/recovering. ridiculous, but part of it was i wasn't used to wearing shoes anymore, much less heels. i know, talk about uncivilized....

when i walked into the office in was in the middle of a remodel, my office had been boxed up which i worked at for a couple of days & i had a student assistant who'd been there for a whole 3 weeks. that was my training. i was in another office for a few weeks, next to E & mainly assisted him.

my boss, F, came in to the office once a week. i wasn't exactly sure of him. i told B he was very hard to read & i really didn't know if he liked me or not, then B suggested he possibly felt the same way about me, which actually comforted me.

as soon as he was able to F had me moved back to my desk, up in front, alone, but more importantly away from E. my student assistant had moved on as the summer was over & 2 assistants for the fall were coming in as i began unpacking the crap that was to be my office.

i couldn't believe the amount of boxes that were supposed to fit in there. i unpacked & tried to make sense of things, then i unpacked more & then i couldn't do anymore. i would have the student unload a box & i would grow through it bit by bit, it was painful how much crap had been saved. the position had been held by 3 or 4 people previously & nobody threw out a damn thing throughout those 20 years. at one point i thought i was actually going to cry i was so overwhelmed by it all, but then i thought about how once i knew it was all shit i could throw it away & i was ok.

everytime F would come in he would say something about "there's still boxes in there." he didn't know how badly i wanted to put a match to all of it. there was at least 5 different files for the same thing; one person was highly organized, she had a green hanging file then a thick folder file to hold one page, or to hold a few empty forms.....from 10 years ago. the latest person had most of her file labels written by hand, scribbled "SSN" or "osha", very professional.

my first day F did tell me the permanent position would be listed & he wanted me to apply for it. it took several weeks, it finally listed & i applied. not right away as i had to update my resume & work on some things to say i actually had experience in them.