Goodbye November

A found farewell to November. We had a storm come through and turn out the lights for a moment, but, they did come back on. Shipped out copies of Talking Earth to Claggett Creek this morning. Checked out Hunger Games. Processed magazines, two for teachers and six for the library. Worked on the calendar for next month. Checked in(17)/out(2) other items; put money into two print accounts. Checked out a withdrawing student.

The One Kissing That Guy

A student came and asked if I could unlock her documents, so I looked at her computer and said I would ask Mr. B when he came back. He just happened to come back and asked where she was and I pointed and said, "Oh, she's the one kissing that guy up there." Of course I would look just then. Got in the Analysis books in from McKay today to beef up our collection. Worked on repairs. Started boxing up the cart loads of old German resources from Mr. J's old room that the substitute decided to get rid of. One of the students that really misses Mr. J came and looked through stuff and we found a 1913 copy of an English/German grammar book. Since the student really likes German and does research on the wars, I let him have the book (even though I secretly would have liked to give it to my son) and he was very appreciative. Boxed up two carts of stuff and will work on more tomorrow. We got in a box of office supplies and I checked them in and took it up to Mrs. H and Mrs. M so they could restock. Entered in a new student. Helped another with unlocking her computer. Checked in/out a few things. Helped up front a little. Made a couple of 'pass checks' through the library. Glad to be back!

Thanksgiving

I'm so thankful for my job! What a glorious delight to go to work doing something you love and a place you love! It truly is something to give thanks for. I've never had a 'job' that I've loved the way my passion and interests coincide! I'm truly blessed! Monday I spent the day working in the back room moving all the math books. I still have a bit to go, but for the most part, they are all in their new homes, all the shelves tagged and with placards for the ones we can't see too easily! (On one side of the shelves, the books actually hang over the end of the shelf just enough so you'd have to bend over to read the label, so I took old date due cards and bent them with the numbers of the books on that shelf on them so we don't have to bend or guess!) I work my shift and a quarter since we have to cram two and a half days into just two! The school is closed on Wednesday, even though we're 'working'. Tuesday I did my other day and a quarter and processed magazines four for teachers and six for the library. Since the parents will have two tables to wait at for teacher conferences, I put some out for them to look at while they wait. Mrs. H wanted me to revamp the Realidades teacher resources from one catagory with everything in it, to each item having its own. So, I did that on the computer. I barcoded the last of the Literature - Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Essay. I don't have enough room on the shelf for all of them! Helped a couple of students today who were in for conferences and needed some textbook help. Went through my folder of textbook orders we had this year and organized all of them. Happy Thanksgiving to all and God Bless Us, Every One!

Friday Before Thanksgiving

Packed up Calculus books today and shipped them out. Processed one teacher magazine and three for the library. Redid all the Volume and Issue numbers for ESPN (now that I know where they have that info!), helped Mrs. H count the print money and did lots of repairs. Usuals of checking in/out, print money, log-ins and assisting students. Helped Mrs. M just a bit on her sci/fi box, found a couple of books to put in there. Kind of a crazy day, and I'm tired! Just two days next week of 7.2 hours each.

Fish in the Eddies

Had to laugh at a couple of kids that were looking for a friend today. Four came in the main doors, two proceeded further while two just kind of circled between the door and our metallic gates. They came together and then drifted apart and finally all left. They were so cute! Did more repairs today, got down the spanish Foundations of Algebra books and after talking with the department head we decided to keep them for the math department. They also don't use the CPM Calculus books, so I asked schools who needed them and one got back to me so I withdrew them, marked them all out and will box and ship tomorrow. Checked out a class set of Colored People. Worked the front desk a bit this morning and it was busy. Processed in three magazines for the library and one for a teacher. Had one of our aides pull all the math books out of the shelves I'm redoing in the back. Found a book Mrs. H thought got taken last night. Mrs. H had a meeting to go to this afternoon, so I locked up the library when my shift was over. Pulled down the screen and kind of made sure things looked pretty nice since there is another function in the library tonight.

Wednesday? Already?

Not sure where the week is going, but it's going fast! Had a request for some teacher materials so I packed them up and sent them off. Processed two teacher magazines and one for us. Checked out a withdrawing student. A student returned a lost book from last April, so I made sure it got off their billing. Sent in a Life Ring on a couple of computers that won't pop open their CD drives. Student assists(11); check in(4)/out(6), print account money(3), did a student pass check, cleaned up the library, paper, chairs, etc since there is an event in there tonight. December is coming, so worked on an idea for the new calendar, a Starry, starry night...books on stars.

Notice

Worked on sending out overdue notices today. We have to take each kid, look them up in our system and then find their language arts teacher and write the teacher's name on the notice so we can deliver them to teachers to be handed to the kids. Whew! But we got them all done, so hopefully notices will go out and we'll start getting those books back in. The extra key for the backs of the computer desks was in Mrs. H's desk, so I took it, labeled it and put it in the back for if we ever need it again. Worked more repairs today. Processed 2 teacher magazines and 4 for the library. Checked in(5)/out(6), log-in requests(2), print accounts(5). Then we have a teacher who would like an audio version of Great Expectations from the 1991 edition of our freshman lit book so I e-mailed our rep to see if he knows if it is available. We'll see!

Algebra 2

I am so excited that Mrs. H returned today! She left me a little present (she knows I love Mint 3 Musketeer bars) and it was good to have her back! Checked in(5)/out(15), put money in print accounts(3). Mostly repaired all day. Had a student ask to get her paperback math book covered and I did that for her. Processed one teacher magazine and two for the library. Worked in the back reshelving the math books after realigning and renumbering the shelves for the rest of the Algebra 2 Vol. 1 books and got through over half of the Algebra 2 V2 books. Exciting day for me, my son should be on his way out of Afghanistan back to be reunited with his family after 11 months there. He's only seen his daughter for two weeks in all that time and I was jumping around all day hoping to get the call that he was done and home! Well, they could be hugging each other a long time too!

Life Table

We had another CIS advisory today and I was again helping out the sophomore class. It's fun to interact with the students so much! I reset all my biography and autobiography books since we have so many fabulous books. Worked on repairs. Changed out the Life Magazines for three different classes and got them all put away. One needed repairs, so I glued the page together (using my fabulous training) and will check it Monday!

Magazines

Today I came in and Ms. L and Mrs. M were looking for a book, Laika. So I poked around a bit, and when a student asked for a particular book, I happened to look over, and there it was! We checked it out to Ms. O and I took it to her and she was very excited and was talking to her class about it as I left. A student came by looking for Zombie Survival Guide and I had to tell him it was checked out with 4 holds on it. He decided to wait a bit. Did a lot of repairs today and got the last set of Platinum books out to start on. Did two book reviews. Checked in(9)/out(4); log-ins(1) and money into print accounts(4). Ms. C was coming in for her class to look at our collection of Life Magazines. These are all bound in 2 to 3 month books, very nicely. Her aide picked up all the 1950's and 51's. So I e-mailed Ms. C about what she wanted, and she wanted a cross of all the 50's. So I placed on the tables starting with 1950 and had 12 books out for the students to look at. Then we discussed having a new set out for each of her classes on Friday, so after she left today, I picked up all the ones the students had looked at, and put out new issues for Friday morning. They are amazing! I had another student check out this afternoon, and one gal I helped with the books she had out. One had been mismarked on the billing, so I straightened that one out, cleared the two books off the main frame she brought in, then gave her our used book seller address and the isbn of the other two books she still has out. Veteran's Day tomorrow, so no school. Thank you to all the veteran's out there. We have several at our school and my son is currently in Afghanistan (though I hope to hear any day that he is back with his family on base in Italy). Thank you all for your service.

Lost Focus

Last night before I left, I set up the DVD player and Infocus set up we have so a group could use it for a meeting. This morning the set up was gone. Someone just came by and took it. It's frustrating that someone thinks they can just come be, see some equipment and take off with it. What if someone needed it and had requested it? They'd be out of luck. I didn't notice until this afternoon, took a look around, asked Mrs. M and Ms. L if they'd seen it when they came in and they said no. I sent out an e-mail and no one had answered by the time I left. Gave out a couple of 2 Textbooks out slips today. Mrs. H has a special key for the locking back of the computer lab desks and has it at home with her! We asked around, and the techies didn't have one, so I scrounged in the back and found some keys and voila! one fits! So we have a key! Monitored kids and their passes. Two kids had old passes, one from October, one from September! We told them, no, they had to go get a new one for today. Did repairs. Had a student report some of what she thought may be hacking issues. Had two damaged books come in today. Processed four teacher magazines and three for the library. Did the usuals, checking in(3)/out(8), money in print accounts(5) and getting log-in numbers (3).

Dive! Dive!

Mrs. H is still out and will be all week, but Mrs. M was out again today which really surprised me, so we had two subs again today. (Get it? Subs, submarines, dive...) Had to immediately unlock the cabinet so we could load the copier with more paper. Processed in one teacher magazine and one for us. A student is withdrawing so had to go in on the Main Frame and check her account. She brought in a bunch of books so I cleared those and she also had three from other schools, so I packed them up and sent them off. One of our teachers came and asked "That book you recommended, I need the next one, who was that?" "Graceling by Kristin Cashore, right over there." That's always fun! Talked with Mr. M and Ms. L on her doing a book talk on graphic/sci fi for his class on Friday. He asked me, but she is very good with graphic novels and I won't be in on time to work his first class, so it worked out well. Did a bunch of repair work Checked in more billed books. One novel came from North and was badly water damaged. I let them know and they said to just damage it out. We got in our replacement The Arrival copies, so I called LMSS to see how to do the labels, they're different than the usual since it is a lit set. They walked me through it and I got them all labeled and ready to go. Worked on some lab scheduling since Mrs. H isn't here, we have a copy printed out so we can add or adjust as necessary!

Only One

I thought perhaps Mrs. M wouldn't be in today, and since I was actually feeling pretty good, I went ahead and went into work. Ms. L was in for Mrs. H and we had another sub in for Mrs. M, so it was good I came in. Checked in/out books, checked log-in numbers, put money into print accounts. Helped a student find a book on Lacrosse. When I requested it from another school, they pointed out he had several overdue books! So I got went to his class and he said two of them were turned in, but yeah, he still had one over due. So when he gets that one in, we'll send for the Lacrosse book. We had some new books to cover, so I had to find bones for them to rub the contact paper on the books like we do. Another student needed to have a video attached to her power point, and I don't know how to do that, and asked Mr. B to help her. Processed in two library magazines and one for a teacher. Worked on repairs. Helped the president of the Manga Club to set up his poster for the activity thing this afternoon.

That's Life

So, Mrs. H left yesterday for a procedure and I had to leave early to have a tooth pulled. I first let the office know that Mrs. H was doing fine (I texted with her last night) and collected the mail. I checked e-mails and one of the teachers had borrowed some of our wonderful Life magazine collection and left it for me or someone to put away, so I took the opportunity to get those all back in order. I pulled an aide to help me, then went back and rechecked, made some more adujustments on there and got them all in chronological order. They date from 1937 to 1980 something. We had a book where a student had really ripped a page and he had brought in a replacement copy, so I took the page out of there and put it in the book copy. Hopefully the repair will be good when I check it when I go back! When I took the book out, it was on a box, so I pulled the box down to look at it and there was a whole set of Marketing materials, mostly student workbooks, so I sent an e-mail to our marketing teacher and he'd never heard of that. I will check a few more things when I get back to work. I took all the excess money from print accounts and locked them away. Mrs. H and I have the only key to the storage lock box and I'm not sure if I'll be in tomorrow or not! It hurts, goodbye for now!

Sub In

Mrs. H had surgery today so we have a sub in for the next week and a half. She used to have my job as assistant, but now she's a real teacher librarian! Ms. L! Checked out another class set of First Aid books, and 12 other individual requests. Checked in 7, checked log-in information for a couple and did print account money for 4 others. Mostly worked repairs today. Sent back some 6-Way paragraph books to Waldo. Now that we have our own, a teacher brought them in and asked if I could ship them back, so I did. We also had a fire drill today and it was soooo nice out! Enjoyed getting kicked out of the building! Too bad it didn't last longer!

Auto-Biography

Processed in the Six-Way Paragraph books for the teachers and the Realidades teacher materials that arrived late yesterday and let the teachers know they were ready to be picked up. Processed in a replacement Great Gatsby. Pulled the First Aid books and checked them out for two classes today and we will have another class tomorrow. All set for that! Mr. M needed some dictionaries for his classroom and I also suggested he take some thesauri as well. Mrs. H got permission to send back The Arrivals that were misbound, so I packed them up and sent them off to LMSS. Processed in two teacher mags and four library mags. Also distributed learning materials to teachers that came in from a teacher resource company. Fielded a request from a teacher for a book at another school and sent that out. Worked on the outside the door bulletin board on the difference between autobiographies and biographies. Worked print accounts, other checking in and out.

Nano!

Monday the 1st - What with National Novel Month Starting, the Knockout Quiz and life in general, I forgot to post yesterday! I finished up the calendar, and though it is busy, I like it. Got in the 6-Way Paragraph books for the English department and asked them if they wanted them as teacher resources or for students. Got in the 4th edition of Literature Reading Drama, Poetry and Essays. We had to buy these on the Amazon Marketplace so they are coming in from all over! I took one to Mrs. M and had her check it against the edition they're using right now and she was very happy! So I barcoded all of those and got them ready for check out. Got in 8 boxes of our Baker and Taylor order - Huzzah! That was awesome! I unpacked them all. Found a book for a student who had one on hold and got that ready for her to pick up today. Mrs. M left and since Mrs. H was teaching, I closed down my window and took a cart of repair books up to the front and worked the front counter. Checking kids coming in to see if they had a pass, having it stamped, making sure they sign in the front notebook, checking in and out, it is very busy up there! Mrs. M does a fabulous job on keeping all that going up there.