An Update on My So-Called Work (and maybe somewhat of a Dating) Life

Ah yes, I have made it to Saturday.  I had no idea how much sleep I'd been missing, between the adjustment to a new routine and just plain anxious restlessness at night, that it surprised me how quickly I'd fallen asleep last night and--aside from the 5 a.m. kitty breakfast--stayed in bed until 9 a.m. today.

The other adjustment is the huge imbalance I now have between library management and teaching classes.  I went from 12 library/tech classes and 12 book exchanges per week to 28 library classes (in fact another librarian comes from one of the other schools to cover a 29th) and what amount to basically 4 book exchanges for kindergarten.  There are just that many students!

And I'm finding that there are some who can barely communicate as they are just learning to speak English.  I'm sure they will come along way during the year, and I hope that getting to borrow books to read will help.

So far, 5th grade are my darlings--they seem to be the smallest group in the building--and 1st grade are kinda nuts.  But I realize it's an adjustment for them to have a longer library class now than they did last year.

The good news is that we found the yet-to-be-placed book order and will put it through this week.  I'm not happy that I have to wait for the books to come in and I'm stuck with what was approved, but I do have more in the budget to spend.  I'll have to sit down and puzzle out what we still need, along with what I plan to do for the year.  At least I'm inspired by this book (Penguin has lesson plans) so maybe that will help with planning for this month.  I know it will take some time to get things together, but I do feel motivated.  And the paycheck I got yesterday (Bills are paid! Hooray!!!) feels a little validating, too.

My principal--who seems to be in perpetual motion--stopped for a moment Thursday to talk to me and meet my mentor, who had stopped by at the end of the day to help answer some more questions I had.  My mentor acknowledged the reason for her visit but added, "But she knows what she's doing and she's doing great."

"I'm sure of that," replied my boss, "because I knew that when I interviewed her, that she really knew her stuff."

Man, that felt good.  Nothing like a little confidence boosting.


And in other news, Mr. Lehigh Valley and I are finally talking about figuring out a time to meet up. I'm afraid he's going to be put off by how much I have going on in a most out-of-the-ordinary parade of events running through September and October--but hey, my sudden popularity is impressing the heck out of myself.  I'm even waiting on one more confirmation on a cantoring change.  Somehow, the lady who schedules the cantors completely misread my email and put me down for dates I said I could not do.  One frustration I could do without in the middle of trying to navigate a new job and foster a possible relationship.

Now, I don't know what the catalyst was that made him bring up meeting at last--because frankly my faith was starting to reach its limit and I'm still reading the "We've got new matches for you" emails from the website--but maybe it was just getting over the new-school-year hump, or there was some sort of unknown-to-me timetable going from when we first started corresponding at the beginning of August. . . or maybe it was that hysterical conversation we had the other night (I was laughing so hard I was crying), and he told me I had a really great sense of humor.

Oh, and he has given me an inside-joke nickname in our e-correspondence.

It's weird to feel both the newness and the familiarity of starting a new job, and starting to be interested in someone.  I know I've done these things before, but it's been a few years in both cases.  And you may recall that I got off to a lousy start at my previous job.  Also pretty much was the last time I dealt with any kind of actual dating situation was this.

Is it the timing that's different, or is it possible that I'm different now?

Or both?