Boredom and bookcases

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that returning to work has been a shock to the system. It seems over the past few days that while I have returned to work hardly anyone else has. The TTC is like a ghost school. I’ve still only seen about half of the tutors and my class of 52 students only had 21 present today. Small groups of students drift about aimlessly or can be found sitting and chatting under trees. The classrooms are mostly empty and the students are reluctant to do any work. The staffroom is far too quiet and the notice boards are full of exam timetables from the term before. It’s taking a massive amount of self motivation to be the all singing all dancing enthusiastic teacher in this general climate of lethargy. But fortunately for me a couple of golden moments have kept me going.

The first was when a student spent his whole morning yesterday making me a sign to welcome people to the TRC. He wrote that it was ‘a good place to visit’ which was so sweet and reminded me that despite appearances some of the students actually are interested in the resource centre. And the second moment of joy came today when the bookcases were delivered. I now have four large bookcases which is actually somewhat life changing. I can’t wait for the varnish to dry overnight so I can spend tomorrow putting things on the shelves. Jeez I’m a tragic case, what has become of me?! I’ve just re-read that sentence that ‘I can’t wait to spend tomorrow putting things on shelves’ and realised what a weird thing that is to be excited about. I don’t think I have ever said such a thing in my whole life. People who knew me before will remember generally I leave everything on the floor and couldn’t care less about arranging stuff neatly on shelves. So there we go. I am a changed woman....well....as long as you don’t look in my house...