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Monday 2 February 2009

What a Day!

I'm exhausted. The kids are exhausted. The whole town is exhausted. True to form, the weather put on a summer scorcher for the first day of school and it was really hard to take. 39C is not hot by normal standards around here, but when the humidity is as high as it was today it's really draining.

The poor teachers at school. Not only did they have classrooms full of hot, sleepy children because their air conditioners were struggling, but when they got a break and went to the staffroom, the air conditioner wasn't working at all. I was on duty in the library at lunchtime and I had 50 children in there, not for the books, but for the cool. I'm sure the teachers and students alike all heaved a huge sigh of relief when the final bell went.

Despite the heat, Sausage seemed to enjoy her day. When I took her in, most of her class were already seated. The teacher said she could sit wherever she liked, so she said she wanted to sit next to L, a little boy she was sweet on last year. I'd always thought it was a one-sided affair, until I saw L's face as Sausage walked towards the spare desk next to him. His Mum was sitting on it and he couldn't push her off there fast enough! Cute.

Dynamo was appointed 'Bus Captain' which means that he has to make everyone who is going on his bus line up and stay in line, then walk in an orderly fashion when the bus comes. A great honour - well, it might be if there was more than him and Sausage getting on the bus! Most of the students on the bus go to the State school a kilometre away.

Eldest is still morose. When he chose his subjects for this year, they (the school he's going to) talked him out of doing Geography and talked him into doing a vocational education course in Business Studies. The idea was that it wasn't as much work (giving him more time to study all the Maths, Physics and Chem he's doing) and he'd have a qualification at the end of it. It seems though (on the basis of one lesson), that Business is horrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrible and borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring, so he desperately wants to do I.T. which will probably be borrrring too, because he already knows it all, but at least it won't be horrrrrrrrrrrrible. So I may spend all my lunchtime on the phone tomorrow. Ho hum.

Please don't let it be as hot tomorrow.

7 comments:

Rena Jones said...

Oh, the first day of school is always hard when it's hot. I grew up in Southern California and remember going to school in September in new fall clothes, only to be hit with late summer temps.

I hope tomorrow is cooler! We're getting snow here right now.

Kate said...

Ooooh! Send me some?

Anonymous said...

I hear ya Kate! The first year I taught school the air conditioning unit was struck by lightning the first week of school. We are in So. Nevada so it was at least 100 degrees or more. I still remember looking at those red cheeks on my poor students and wondering, "Why are we here?" There wasn't much learning going on those few days the air was out. I'm so glad that is just a memory now. ;>)
Melanie

C.R. Evers said...

how cute about the little boy's face lighting up!!!! luv it! :0)

HOpe you can keep cool!

Christy

Kate said...

Happy to say the last couple of days have been cooler, or at least not so humid.

Melanie, would you believe our secondary campus was hit by lightning over the weekend? Wiped out half the telephones and computers. But at least the air conditioners still worked!

Rena Jones said...

I've nominated you for an art blog award over on my blog. Check it out!

Brenda said...

I miss those first days of school...grin...