It turns out I wasn't meant to be a man...

Occasionally I wonder if I was meant to be a man and was somehow born female.  I don't mind being female...although I could go without periods, but there have been several occurrences that make me think that I was potentially supposed to be male. 

For example, I have been called "sir" multiple times on the phone.  I have a lower female voice, but I didn't think it was that low.  I did use it for my advantage once and was able to get a question answered posing as my brother for his university (I had the pertinent information as well).  My dad even confused me for my brother on the phone once--that was a depressing moment. 

The really disturbing part is when I've been called "sir" in person.  I realize that there are some time from far away with short hair and a hat on that I could appear as a man, but up close, I thought I looked fairly feminine.  Not that I'm well endowed but I do have more of a chest than a man ought to.  I end up just curtly replying "ma'am" and remind the perpetrator of my female status. 

Then besides my low voice and the lack of knowledge of high school students of the word ma'am or my supposed manly appearance, I tend to do a lot of things that are typically considered the "male" role.  I love to fix things up.  I have done a decent amount of home projects that people always find interesting that me--a girl--have done.  In fact, my boyfriend's friend got a bar-b-que for christmas and we decided to put it together for him.  Somehow I ended up putting the bar-b-que together while my boyfriend cooked a fabulous breakfast.  We swapped roles that day and I loved it.  I own way more tools that other guys my age.  I was ecstatic to get a drill/light/saw combo from my dad for Christmas and absolutely love getting Home Depot gift cards for any present occasion. 

The electrician I called the other day to come finish installing my ceiling fan that had perplexed me for some time was impressed that I managed to put the black with the black, the blue with the black and the white with the white for the wiring.  However, when I did that the fan and light worked, but not through the light switch.  No worries, the electrician came out and fixed the wiring problem (which apparently in this case the black went with a white and some other random combination--good thing I called him).

In college I was hired as a second tier tech support for internet.  As it was a campus based job, I was the first girl to be hired on the team and all the guys I worked with definitely had an adjustment period to having a "girl" in their work environment. 

With all these things and particularly being called sir frequent enough, it makes me think about my gender (not seriously as if I would change it, just contemplation).  However, I am reassured that I really am female from a recent purchase--the wii.  I caved and bought a wii.  I'd been considering it for awhile and was convinced I needed one after spending a week out of town at my friends house playing old nintendo games that I loved.  I made the purchase at least a few weeks ago now.  And guess what?  It's STILL in the box!  GASP!  Fool-proof evidence that I am not meant to be a male.  What male in their right mind would buy a really cool electronic device and not actually open it for several weeks?  I know of none.  And now I have a reassuring event to prove mostly to myself that there is very much a feminine side to me. 

As a side note, the original plan was to keep it in the box so I would finish some project--which I can't recollect what that is anymore--and I just haven't actually made it to opening it.  Maybe this weekend seeing it's Labor Day and I have an extra day.

Come to think of it, I did that when I bought my first ipod and a dvd player.  I didn't open my ipod til a day or two before I was going to Europe even though I'd bought it awhile before then.  I think my DVD player I opened quicker, but it still sat for awhile.  I must be more feminine than I think.

FYI--I am trying to even be more feminine this year and wear make-up almost always.  I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but I find make-up time consuming and frustrating to get off at the end of the day.  My sister was thrilled when I recently called her to ask her what make-up I should be buying.  She directed me through the choices over the phone while I was at the store.  I am happy to say I have worn make-up every work day thus far (which means 7 days).  Yeah for me and my attempt at regular make-up usage. 

Must everything be broken?

I am a high school teacher.  I was trying to avoid that piece of information, but with the recent series of events I decided to cave.  The teachers start earlier than the students to get everything ready.  There's usually a decent amount of things broken when we get back, but this year has been insane. 

First off, they had the water off except in one hall.  The water was turned back on not too long after that, but there was very brown water when you washed your hands.  Is it sanitary to wash your hands in brown water?  I used hand sanitizer in addition to washing but I felt awkward walking out of the bathroom without an attempt to clean my hands.


Several rooms were chosen to have carpet installed this summer, including mine.  Is anyone surprised that they had from the beginning of June til Mid August to accomplish this and nothing happened?  The carpet was for sure supposed to be installed the day before teachers came to school.  The instructions from the custodians: Only put what is absolutely necessary in your room.  According to the custodians, that is only the student desks, my smaller teacher desk and chair.  And another desk that had piled on top my little rubbermaid pull out drawer holder things (my brain is fried and is not thinking of words well) and another bucket holding staplers, washing bottles, and I'm sure some other things, but I haven't dug down there yet.  I have two large tables that I store things on and a nice little bookcase kind of thing with lots of slots to put papers.  I have nothing to put anything on up at the front of the class.  Nowhere to put the book down momentarily--nada.  Consequently, the papers I pass out (which normally go in a closet but are currently holding the calculators I don't have a spot for) end up on the floor, in the tiny space left on the desk with heaping piles and on the two chairs I brought in when I didn't have enough desks for students in third period. 

And I found out from the custodian that the carpet wasn't even shipped until August 18th.  Seriously what is the deal with that?

The first day back, district workers had cut the cord to the network printer in order to re-wire them.  Not having a printer in my room I am now unable to use the copy lady that specifically came in this week to help the teachers.

 Oh...the copy room.  We have three riso machines (they are amazingly fast and I'm still mesmerized by the speed it shoots out each paper), a normal one that you would typically find in a public library, and then the mother of all copiers (well...it's up there anyways) that only the copy ladies are allowed to use.  Take a guess how many are working.  Two.  The one the copy lady uses and one riso.  The normal copy machine is back in business now, but I'm still waiting for the others to be fixed.

The grading program functions well as long as you can get in; which I can't during the day.  At night it's all dandy (except for tonight...thus the time to blog).  I don't even have a full roll of who is in my class.  I have no clue.  None.

The weight room was being revamped for safety reasons.  It's not done either.  Currently the weightlifting class is held on the top bleachers in the gym. 

The track was supposed to be replaced.  It's almost done.  They are hoping it will be done by the first football game, which I believe is this week.

They also decided that textbooks would now be checked out through the library.  That means we have to put barcodes on the books and then scan each child.  Not too big of a deal...unless the system is so slow a snail could beat it.  Originally, the librarians were going to come to our classrooms and check it out there.  But the wireless all over the school isn't working (and I happen to know, every room but two get a signal--or at least did when I was over it).  Now we have to march the kids down to the library and do it there since it somewhat functions there. 

To make matters even more interesting, the librarians computer isn't working and so she is depending on her personal laptop to carry all of this out.  What great fun!

I have a smartboard in my room as well.  I turned it on and of course it doesn't work either.  Another thing to add to the list.  Although I can project images, which is better than nothing.  My co-worker had his projector sent to the district to get fixed last year and he has yet to see it. 

Oh and they reimaged all the computers this summer as well.   But upgrading to windows 7 didn't actually work out for a whole bunch of the computers.  First problem...windows.  Second problem....windows 7.  Third problem...old computers.

On the upside of this year we do have all of our student and teacher textbooks--in my department anyways.  Last year we started without those. 

Speaking of textbooks, another one of my co-workers was finally on the rotation list to get new textbooks for the English department which they haven't had in a really long time.  Then the new national core came out.  It's not in full swing, but they made her wait to make any purchases until the publishers had a new book out that matched up with the national core, which won't be in full swing for another three years.

Oh and purchases...let's talk about this.  The financial manager/accountant lady doesn't have enough time to do probably everything, but there are times I wonder what in the world she does.  It takes FOREVER to be reimbursed on anything.  And she doesn't understand little explanations about the receipts that you submit.  On top of which she losses things.  Or someone does.  Everyone in the school knows to make copies of every financial documentation you have to submit.

I will say there are more tech people here than I've ever seen at the beginning of the school year.  It used to just be me, with two rarely helpful teachers as my sidekicks.   Then the school realized that it was insane to have a teacher have one prep period to take care of networking, hardware, purchasing, imaging, the school newsletter, the school webpage, printers, failing notices and midterms and I'm sure some other things I'm forgetting.  They hired a full time tech person.  And then we got a new principal.  We butt heads, so I quit the tech part.  Then it was back down to the full time tech and one slightly more helpful teacher.  I saw six people in the library having a tech support meeting.  And a handful of other people working on pulling cords places.  That is, I suppose, one redeeming quality. 

Although I must confess on the first day in our classrooms, people kept coming to me because something had gone wrong and apparently felt more comfortable with me fixing it rather than the full time techie.  So I spent the first two and a half hours assisting other people instead of anything for my room.  It wouldn't be so tragic if everything else wasn't out of order like it was or if the faculty meeting hadn't been three and a half hours long.

So you see what great lengths my school district has gone to make improvements and consequently made a very wretched beginning to the school year. 

This is the public school system.

I'm just not a blogger

I went to go help my friend clean her house the other day and as we were chatting and cleaning she asked if I had read her blog recently. Truthfully, it was probably more recent than previous times I've read blogs, but it had been a good month or two or so. I usually remember occasionally when I'm checking my email and I see the google reader and think, "I ought to read blogs." And I do, but it's more of a once in a blue moon kind of thing rather than a nightly or weekly occurrence.

She was explaining how she hadn't posted for awhile and how she received phone calls and emails about updating her blog. Granted she has a cute little girl that people want to see pictures of and I have no children to post pictures of, but still I found it amusing that people called and emailed her to post. What she wanted to tell her mom was to go look at my blog and see the last time that I blogged. And it would have made her mom feel much better about her frequency of posts in comparison to mine.

In my defense I do have a couple of drafts that I just wanted a picture in or got tired of writing mid-thought and just saved it and left. I still have no pictures of what I wanted and thus they are still sitting as drafts.

I could go get the camera to make it more interesting of a look on my blog. But I'm content in my chair for the moment and don't care to get it.

I suppose I ought to have some brilliant thought, story or something to go with this post. But I think I'll save them for later, post this and see if I make it back sometime in the same month to post again.

It's possible...not probable, but possible.