Classroom Ready

So, I'm not doing so hot on the sleeping front.  Wednesday I woke up at 3:30 AM and could barely manage a doze after that.  This morning I slept until 6, but that was only because of the sleeping pill I took at 12:30 after trying to fall asleep unsuccessfully for three hours.

Tonight's Back to School Night.  I think my room is ready: 

I've hung my newest show posters:

and the spiffy poster I picked up in Stratford-upon-Avon:



On my parents' suggestion, I added stars to mark my Shakespeare shows:




Gold for shows I've seen, red for shows I've directed or acted in.  I was going to put a star for each occasion of each show, but realized I didn't have enough room on "Romeo and Juliet" or "Midsummer" to mark all of my productions.


I also added my new Chinese shadow puppets to my wall collection:




I like my desk area.







I'm especially fond of this little fellow, a birthday present from Rachel:

Alright, time for a quick dinner and then time to meet the newbies!

Dear High School Self

Our school counselor sent out a request.  She's putting together a bulletin board and asked each teacher to write a short motivational note to our high school selves and to contribute a photo from those days gone by.


Dear My High School Self, (I wrote)

Don't worry - all of the hard work will be worth it. 
College is absolutely fantastic!


Being a bit indecisive, I gave her a choice between two photos.  This one is my favorite of the two:

but I wasn't sure if having two people in the photo would be an issue, so I also sent her this:

I'm curious to see which one she picks as well as what the other teachers have to say to their high school selves.

Back to School

The collective conclusion seems to be that this summer went by way too fast.

Today was our first teacher work day back.  We had many meetings, naturally, and just enough time inbetween to create a massive To Do List.  I congratulate myself on stopping for five minutes to eat half a sandwich for lunch ("No!" I told myself sternly.  "You will NOT start the school year off by working through lunch on your very first day back!") and for leaving at the reasonable hour of 4:00.

I was not as effective in reviving my school sleep habits last night.  Due to fretting over the afore-mentioned To Do List, I didn't fall asleep until near midnight and I woke up a little after 4:00 AM.  Remarkably for me, there was no going back to sleep at that point.  But at least I got to school early enough to get some things done before the first meeting!

My summer was really pleasant.  As you saw, there were many travels.  Many, many travels.  Three continents, five countries, and enough nights on the road that when I pulled a load of laundry from the dryer last week it felt really weird to just put my clothes away in the closet instead of in a suitcase.

I purged my closet and dresser and passed on 3 trash bags of clothes to Goodwill.  I potted the vases I bought in China, read several thousand pages of just-for-fun reading, rewatched Season 1 of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," and fought an ongoing fight against the fruit flies that snuck into my home.

Sigh.  It was nice while it lasted.

Farewell, summer 2015.  I hardly knew thee.