Inside My Brain: Summer Edition

Part 1: Nerdy projects

Summer organizing has reached a hiccup: the massive, deep, miscellaneous kitchen utensil and gadget drawer. Oh, how I loathe the word miscellaneous and try to never use it. I remember being about 4 or 5 years-old in my grandparents' RV, where there was a wooden magazine-type sorter affixed to the wall. I was learning to read and I understood "mail" and "magazines," but was is this "misc?" What is the meaning of "misc?" I can't even remember Grammy's response because it had to be vague. I know it started with, "Ohhhhhh," as in, "Ohhhhhh, you know..." But I didn't know. I think I found that a category for things that couldn't be categorized was offensive even at that age. Time travel into the future when I moved in with Josh and first learned of "junk drawers." Growing up, my mom never had a junk drawer and therefore this was not a way of life for me. My dad had the bottom drawer in the kitchen shoved with things like batteries and flashlights, but it was more utility than junk. Josh still maintains at least one junk drawer, but now that I think of it, why is the primary junk drawer in my office/library/craft room? Probably because he doesn't have an office/library/craft room. But as usual, I digress. This drawer is seriously huge and full and I haven't thought of a system. "Cooking" utensils are neatly laid out in a shallow drawer next to the stove. But THIS? Good thing I woke up early today - 7:19 I might add. So far all I've got is 3 containers lined up in the drawer for "preparing," "serving," and "not preparing or serving." That last one clearly borders on that dirty word miscellaneous, so I remain unsatisfied and summer organizing is at a standstill. It's times like this that motivate me to go outside and pull hundreds of weeds.


Part 2: My work year

Aaaaaand in reviewing my new contract to sign, I noticed our board president's signature stamp (Side note: why do I continuously work amongst administrators and board members who appear to measure importance via signature size? I mean, the way a form should work is each line is filled with one thing. So if your signature stamp overlaps onto MY line, well, why don't you make YOUR line space bigger? Okay, okay, I'm aware that my weird obsessions are no longer a secret. Such is Blog Life.). This made me realize that I didn't think about purchasing a signature stamp ONCE throughout the whole school year! Over the last three years this had been an odd fantasy of mine that I never fulfilled. In California my signature devolved over time. Before I was married, I had a beautiful cursive "RachelCollins" in which the "l" in Rachel also served as the "C" in Collins, connecting my name into a single, legible stroke. And my initials were beautiful at that time - a neatly formed cursive "R" encircled by the "C." Lovely. Then came Rachel Burns and the "l" and "B" didn't connect as well. After signing my attendance at meeting after meeting after MEETING, I became RBurns. From there the last few letters became sort of worthless, and now I'm down to RB with some up and down strokes following. It's to the point where bank employees remind me, "You need to sign first AND last name" to which I smile and respond, "Yep, it's all there!" (Side note 2: if the bank employees had been raised with 4 names and had to sign Rachel Noel Hartig Collins about 700 times on mortgages or vehicle loans, they might abbreviate too). So why didn't I think about purchasing a signature stamp once this entire work year? For one, we don't even SIGN attendance at IEPs - our names are just inputted on the front page. Okay, occasionally someone will have us sign a separate attendance page at a reevaluation, but even then I don't think it becomes part of the IEP, I don't know where it goes, and I have never been told to use one. And my blog is not an appropriate means to do so in case you are thinking about it. It is also this unattractive, overly photocopied form whose use violates my strict "if-it's-not-in-an-electronic-format-I'm-not-using-the-form" rule. Let's not forget that I seriously love forms, but I also relish in my new found paperwork freedom that is Iowa public school life. And there is no "print your name" line on this form, only signature and title - sorry folks, as previously noted my signature is illegible so good luck tracking me down later! Two, no one can believe that I used to attend 135 IEPs a year and up. Seriously, I'm sure I attended under 40 this year and it feels like fewer. When I think of the parent no-shows, glorious exits over the phone without a meeting, and times I couldn't attend so someone else had to present for me...maybe I went to 3-4 a month? Not that it averaged out, because almost all of them were in May! But I have done 3 or more in a single day in CA! I think my record was 11 in a week. People, that's not just attendance - we're talking writing and preparing, too, as well as having to select outfits and often forgo the coveted Casual Friday Jeans in order to don a more professional look. The resource teacher at my favorite school calls me a "genius" at IEPS - ha - I tell her that once she's written about a thousand she'll be a genius, too. Of course the IEP in itself is an ever-changing form guided by ever-reinterpreted laws and I am ever-striving to improve my goal writing. But not during the summer. Time to head back to the kitchen drawer battle.

Copyright Rachel Burns 2010