Reading The Weather

I've been a teacher for twenty years.  And, in that time, I have observed that every proper school in which I've taught has had a library.  

I say "proper" schools because there was that year I ran an Alternative Education program for at-risk high school students who'd sort of dropped out of school and that was the year that I was stuck in a drafty, out of the way shack.  There was no library there, but the town's public library let us use their facilities so that all worked out.

But the regular teaching gigs all came with a big book room.  For those of you who enjoy this sort of thing, you will be very, very jealous of me.  Teachers can take out as many books as they want.  They can keep them for as long as they want.  No one will bother to send you an overdue notice until June and even then you can wiggle your way out of too much in the way of repayment.  The sky is the limit.  And, if you really make nice with the librarian, you can walk home with the books that they are retiring from the shelves in June.

In spite of this perk, I've rarely taken advantage of it.  It somehow felt wrong to wander around with library books that I have no intention of returning until I feel like it.  It feels even worse to have stacks of them waiting to be read because that just goes against the rules.  I remember taking out a lot of books on tape one year when I was teaching further north and had an even longer commute than I do now.  I needed something to listen to in the car...  But I never took more than one at a time and it still felt kind of weird.

In my new school, however, our librarian strongly encourages staff to peruse the stacks.  She cheers when you select one to read and looks a little sad when someone leaves without taking something home.  Who am I to make her sad?  If it makes her happy for me to take home two books and not leave them for the children, then that is what I will do.  I'm a bringer of joy, dag-nabbit!!!

We shall not dwell upon the fact that they are both from different series of books that I have been wanting to continue for some time or that I giggled in a kind of evil manner when I made them my own for a short time.  I don't even want to discuss the fact that I was there to try and snare a rather popular book in a new series before one of the kids could get down there and take it first.  That is shameful behavior for a teacher and karma's stepping in to punish me is probably why I didn't find that one...

My thinking here was actually more sound than it seems.  I wasn't so much trying to steal reading material from children as I was looking to stock up some supplies for a "just in case" scenario.  It seems that the first storm of the school year is upon us and it may be a doozy.  We were all released from school at 1:30 today due to the impending ice event and urged to keep an eye on the news tomorrow morning.  My own review of the weather facts leads me to believe that there is no way we will avoid a delayed start to the school day tomorrow.  I'm not seeing a full-on cancellation in the works, but who knows?  Better safe than sorry.  I planned ahead, just in case.

A new knitting project is on the needles, I picked up a chicken and roasted it when I got home in the event of any inconvenient power outages and there is enough reading material to keep me occupied no matter what the weather.  I'm all set.  I even put aside that leftover waffle that I so badly wanted to eat with gobs and gobs of syrup.  That will make a nice breakfast tomorrow in the event that I actually get to eat at home instead of snarfing down foodstuffs in the car as I rocket south towards gainful employment.

Yes, I am all set.  With the assistance of my friendly librarian, I will be happy and occupied should the roads prove too treacherous for the buses.  I should probably feel sad when I think of that kid who didn't get his or her copy of Ptolemy's Gate in order that they, too, might wile away the hours...

But I sort of don't.

SA