My massive home purging extends itself to school. I don't mean for it to happen; it just does. It's like osmosis for maniacal organization.I have a couple of hours to spare for my classroom today, so I start with important stuff, like copies I need to make. Ooops. The tech people are attending a Webinar in the copy room. I hustle to a different copier, but it doesn't work as well and it's really far away. That's the bad news. the good news is that I find a pirated copy of the instructions for the new online grading program, the same info I am supposed to stay after school to learn. Probably wouldn't hurt anyone if I were to make myself a copy of the manual, right? After all, someone just left it out here in the open, and nobody else is around.
I sneak the dual manual into the pile of papers I have just copied. I need to put away the notebooks from which I just made copies when I realize that I have a lot of books and booklets out of order on the shelves inside my large, built-in cabinet. This is when I discover that the skinny booklets are indecipherable along their teeny spines, so I get some labels from the office and create my own mini-spine titles.
Well, if I'm going through the trouble of labeling, I might as well get them into a workable order: Grammar, literature, reading, vocabulary, writing... Oh, and why have them all spread out on four short shelves when I can have them all spread out at eye level on the longer shelves in the cabinet to the right.But, look! I have too many multiples of the same workbooks that we don't use anymore. I cannot throw them out because it's not my call, but they're taking up precious shelf space. I decide to give them away, so I move them to a corner desk. No, I can't give them away; they're germane to my grade-level. I look up and see errant boxes on the very top of the cabinet unit. Hmmmm, if I take those boxes down, I can carefully and in an orderly fashion store the extra books up top.
This is a great idea, except that I am short. The only way to get the books on top of the cabinet it to build a step ladder out of a chair and a rather unreliable desk. Using the empty boxes to break my fall should that be necessary, I spread the cardboard on the floor and gingerly balance while hauling pounds and pounds and pounds of books up over my head.
Suddenly I'm out of time. I have things to do and places to go. I have made some headway today, not at all what I planned, but it looks much better. My back is killing me, but, damnit, I'll be organized at home and at school if it takes me all year; it's an obsession and, quite honestly, it's getting a bit out of my control.
