your head feels twice the size

Getting so behind on this already!

My current sched has me at school A all day Tues and Wed and then Friday from 11:30 til 2:30 ish, including my lunch time. I'm at school B all day Thurs and Fri. morning.

I'd ask K when he was doing schedules last year, if he'd schedule the actual library times--he had the master sched and it was easier for him to do it as he could rearrange other things as need be--since it was a matter of scheduling 16 classes over two days (leaving me Fri afternoons to do library work). He'd asked me how I'd wanted my time structured--it's easier doing full days and given it's a 15 min drive between my two schools, cheaper. Anyhow, he set it up for me, and said, when it was done "There, I've done it for you, you big baby!" (Teasing me--in prior years I'd let the teachers pick their times and done up the sched).

I did my sched at School B with the teachers coming to see me--there's only 8 home rooms; half what I have at school a. Anyhow a bit more unscheduled time there, which I'm gonna need.

I didn't have classes the first week of school at either site. Which was good cus last Thursday, DT (my tech at school B) got me an imac--he asked when I wanted it. I said now? He said: Done. Then went upstairs and got it. We got Alex and other things I needed set up. Bless him--he's so much faster at stuff than SR. I still <3 SR, but he was supposed to upgrade my pc at school A to win7 over the summer. Never happened.  Not shocked, I've worked with him for 12 or so years now and same as always. *sigh* He's a good tech just fucking slow. As I told PD--DT is my favourite tech now...not that I've broken the news to SR. *heh*

Anyhow, had a good chat with DT Thursday--him ranting about how things are done with/via the techs for the board and what he'd do differently if he was in charge. He's so funny--one of THE most laid back guys I've ever met (even more than SR) yet he gets so worked up over shit he cares about. I had a couple simple questions for him today--so I went upstairs to the Tech Cave (my name for it) and asked, but it would've been as easy to email. I asked him if he minded if I did email him--he said he doesn't care, go ahead. (I only ask cus not all techs like folks emailing them about stuff--we have an online help desk to submit things--but if it's a question, email's easier; SR lets me email him as well).

So, Thurs, at School B, I called Comp Corp who own Alexandria to get my codes for v.6 (licence/reg codes change with the update)...the rep said it wouldn't propogate on their servers for about 3 hours; told her this was fine as I wasn't going to update til the next day. Friday morning and I had my updated codes and d/l the installation file for Alex--but there was a line of instruction that I didn't quite get, so I was going to call their tech support, but got no answer (3 hr time diff, it was 7 for me, 4 a.m. for them tho it's 24 hour support). Anyhow DT showed up and he had no idea what they really meant (probably don't overwrite the previous install--it's a bloody mac). He was looking for Alex and saw that I'd dropped the program from the app window onto the desktop. Hee. DT was all "Why did you do that, you don't move programs like that on Windows, etc, etc"; I'm pissing myself laughing at this point--managed to sputter out "but I don't use macs" and "It still worked". hahaha. Yeah, still getting used to the dock thing.

So, we get Alex installed and she doesn't want to let me log in. I'd logged into V5 before I upgraded... DT can't figure out what's wrong, we try again, still didn't work; DT went back to the Tech Cave...I ended up calling Alex tech support--turns out that sometimes the login info doesn't transfer, so he gave me a backdoor pword (yanno what? DID NOT have this problem with Windows...). It worked and I was able to set up users again. Yay. Went upstairs to find DT to let him know it worked.

Then I discovered there was no iTunes. On an iMac. o.^ Couldn't d/l it either (DT doesn't believe me that it's because https sites are blocked, except for whitelisted sites--one of which he showed me that worked. I smirked rather muchly when he couldn't access the d/l even when he used Safari.) I told him, when I'd gone up to ask about it, that I was whiney and needy. He replied, "Only til you get what you need." I forgot to ask about the iTunes today til after he'd gone...so I emailed him tonight.

He really is one of the good guys (married, natch)--today on one of his many forays to and fro from his vehicle to upstairs, he poked his head in and asked if everything was okay. I said it was except I wanted a PC. He responded with sign language...I'm sure you can guess which one. Another reason to like him! LOL

Okay, this is getting long....there's a surprise. I'll talk about first days more in my next post.

Catching up

I don't get paid until the first day of school but am usually in to work the week before to get ready--student recs exported by the secretary and imported by me into my library program (which is Alexandria, Alex for short). Library decorating done, any schedule changes done and finalised. This year I also wanted to go to School B--I'd known I'd be there since May, however the then principal (currently on a year's deferred leave) didn't contact me to come visit and because I'd been warned by my best friend (PD, also an LT in the same board--though she used to be just at a MS, she's now got an elementary added) and now former Principal, K, at School A, that the Library clerk at School B was very angry and bitter about things, I didn't bother trying to go visit before August.

Went over and met the new to me and new to the school principal L and the secretary, B, both of whom seem very nice. Then I walked down the loooonnnnggg hallway to the library (there are no classrooms nearby--two former classrooms are now storage for the school board and there's the day care and janitor's office; I feel rather isolated....).  When I walked in, I almost cried because there, sitting on the desk was not one, but two bloody eMacs. I am totally a PC person. The library clerk left little to nothing for me about her library--not even a subfile saying how she'd done library classes. Didn't know the passwords for the computer, but luckily the janitor did--and then I realised the pword was taped to the monitors--well the computers since they're one piece.

Anyhow, the one emac was running OSX, while the other one, which had Alex on it was on 9.2. *twitch* I emailed my tech, SR, from School A as he was supposed to be my tech at School B as well--asking him where the PC he'd told me would be here was and that I my sanity wouldn't last til xmas if I had to use emacs. (I've used macs briefly over the years--I hate the one button mice--I keep trying to right click. *headdesk*) I found out a bit later that SR was not the tech at School B anymore. Having had to work with a couple of real dicks for techs, I hesitantly asked  the teacher who our new tech was. She said it was DT, whom I've known for years and really like. He'd been PD's tech at her MS for several eyars and that's how I'd met him. He's a mac tech (unlike many of the techs who act like they'll catch on fire if they have to use/fix a mac--SR is included in that list) and knows PCs as well. Our school is his only school--otherwise he and another tech are specialists for sound systems, PA systems, video systems, etc. They're based out of School B--so DT isour tech, then he and his coworker head out to do whatever they're needed for that day.

Anyhow, looked around the library--she'd intershelved all the picture books with the fiction, the spine labels are handwritten! (with TWO printers in the library)  and the barcodes are on the front of the book--but not in the same spot--they can be anywhere on the bottom half  of the front cover. *sigh* And then I looked at Alex--her cataloguing is atrocious and doesn't follow the rules, but I guess when someone's not actually trained, you get what you pay for. Granted, it pales in comparison to what I faced, junk wise at School A when I started there four years ago, but still. *sigh*

Next to nothing for display materials, again a library without an office (might've had one but it's now the math manipulatives/lamenting room)...no phone, again. If I need something have to use the PA system. If I need to make a call, the janitor has said I can use the one in her office, elsewise it's a long walk to the "fishbowl"--so called because the wall to the hall is basically all windows. No idea what purpose it originally served (School B was built in 1962). Also discovered the gymnasium is named for a young man who was a year or so ahead of me at HS and who was killed after a freak hockey accident. He fell into the boards (pretty sure he wasn't checked, though I could be wrong) and the way he hit, it broke his neck; he lingered for a bit, but there was no hope for him. He wasn't a close friend of mine--I more knew of him than anything. Still kinda freaky seeing the gym named for him.

So, that was School B. More about that and School A in another post.

Haven't used this for a few years

I'm going to try and keep this blog up and running. I plan for it to mostly be about work; yes, there will probably be some venting now and again. Railing against the system or myself or others.... I will do my best to keep it pro--no one will be referred to by their real names (Or as one of my former teachers always put it, "Names have been changed to protect the guilty"--which will apply in some cases.). I shall try to avoid mentioning specifics about any of my students--if I tell a story it will be in the most generic of terms....

I am a very fannish person, but other than the occasional squee about a new show or one of my faves (and possibly posts of some guys I consider hotties), I'm really going to try and keep this blog work related. I have other places to be fannish...but I'm not linking to them here. I have no desire for my fannish life and my work/personal lives to intersect.

So background--I know in my user info it's hard to see but that's 22.5 hrs per week to run two school libraries (not 225). I live in a rural area of NS Canada; both of my schools are in large villages/towns; School A at which I have 15 hrs per week, is the larger of the two (and what I consider my home school as it's where I was last year before the changes--more on that later) with ~400 students in P to 5. School B is actually in the village I grew up in, however I didn't attend this school as at the time, it was only for DND dependents who lived in the PMQs. Now, however, it only has ~150 students, also P to 5. The school board has said they're going to look at the boundaries and I hope they do as the boundaries school B shares with the school in the next village over are ridiculous.

Last year, I had a 30 hour/week position at school A (which was considered full time). The provincinal gov't here has been cutting back and cutting back and cutting back on education and health care severely. The next board over initially had all their library staff laid off (they only brought back MS and HS folk). Here? The solution was to cut all library positions (most of us being LTs with a few untrained-but-grandmothered-into-our-contract workers) by 50%. Then they'd pair two schools up and we'd be reassigned, choosing our schools by seniority. With a couple LTs opting to take only one school it ended up that 22 out of 43 of us kept our jobs (there was one retirement in there). My position fell from 30 hrs to 22.5--I was 11th on the seniority list, however any 6 hour positions were so far away that any gain I'd have by that 1/5 hours would be lost in the cost of gas. And I've done the 45 min or more drive to work and it's awful, esp in NS winters. So, I chose these two schools....

And now as I look at the clock on the comp, I realise it's 2:30 in the a.m. No work on Monday (my sched is done over 4 days, thanks to K, my previous admin at school A.) but I do have things I'll need to do later today so I should get a few hours sleep. G'night.