Like a Rocking Boat

To coin a phrase from Aaron, my stomach feels like a rocking boat.  I'm not sleeping well at all, and when I'm awake I'm anxious, nervous and excited all rolled into one mega emotion.  This Friday is new teacher orientation.  I'm a little concerned about it because the schedule implies that they will dominate my entire day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., including a working/networking lunch.  At the very heart of me, I am an introvert and very reflective.  I need space, at least for a few minutes, to gather my thoughts when I'm feeling overwhelmed or when I'm in a new situation.  While I was long-term subbing at the end of last year, I learned that I'm usually one of  "those teachers" who doesn't lunch in the lounge.  I prefer to sit in my room, gather my thoughts and use the time to prepare or decompress.  Alone.

And I still don't know what my first day with my kids will look like.  I can't even begin to think about my first-day script or procedures until I know how my room will be set up.  I know that's strange, but it's just the way I am.  I don't have a good sense of theoretical spatial organization - I need to actually be in the space and see it.

We did finish painting my room Saturday!  Pressly was such a sweetheart to help me, and several people who came in said it was a "relaxing" or "calm" color.  Perfect!  I'm accenting with bright, stimulating colors like orange, tropical blue, lime and hot pink so the kids won't immediately fall asleep.  But calm is definitely what I was going for.

I have been creating lots of new letter cutouts for my class walls and have some other ideas that I want to vet out once I have my room set up.

I had a nightmare last night that I got into my room and the kids' desks were all mis-matched.  Some of them were the newer sturdy tan and blue desks, others were half pink, half yellow, even others were the old melamine (fake wood) desks, so when I tried to arrange the desks in groups of 4, they were all different heights.  Crazy stuff my brain comes up with, but since I don't even know what kinds of desks will be in there, it's a valid fear, I guess.  They waxed the floors over the weekend - I'm hoping they put furniture back today.