Common Battles

This day was a struggle from the time my alarm clock went off this morning. There was no way I was getting out of bed, it was my last day to "sleep in" before having to start my real work schedule. How obnoxious would it be if I just let the thing beep while I attempted to stay warm under my covers (it was a chilly morning in the 'burgh). Then I remembered that my best friend, Lindsey, was spending the night and she was in the other room. So I got up, hit the snooze button and went back to bed. 6:00 a.m. is way too early for someone who's used to waking up at 7:00 and rolling out of the house by 8:00. And now I'm supposed to switch the schedule I've had for the past two years... and for what, a big raise, less travel and my dream job? Sounds pretty crappy...NOT! But still, I need to get in the habit of this waking up early thing. Even though I didn't have to be there any specific time today, I was seriously aiming to be there by 8:30. So, 9 minutes later, the alarm goes off again. I hit snooze. 9 minutes later, the alarm goes off again. I hit snooze, again. Seriously, what alarm making company decided that 9 minutes was a good snooze time? I'm thinking 20 minutes sounds a lot more reasonable! Finally, the alarm goes off one more time and I hear Lindsey getting up and moving around. It's probably around 6:30 at this point. I pulled myself up and out of bed and turned off my alarm and went out to help Lindsey finish folding up the futon and pushing it back into place. Actually, I think I just pushed it back into place. And then, I plopped my tired little self right on the couch while Linds got ready for work. When she left, I locked the door, set my alarm again, and fell quickly back to sleep until 7:40 a.m.! I think this battle with my alarm clock is a battle I will never, ever win.

So at 10:00 a.m., I finally make it in to work. My goal for this morning was to copy all the IEP's for the children on my caseload, since I still did not have access to my computer or e-mail. I'm not quite sure why there aren't copies of their current IEP's in my speech files in my office but I'm going to do things just a little differently than the previous therapist. To each their own.

Now onto the battle of the copy machine. Now this copy machine is the most daunting copy machine I've ever seen, but like they say, "don't judge a book by it's cover"; it was one of the easiest copy machines I've ever used! Grade by grade, I copied the IEP's, but not without a hassle. Since I pulled the files by grade and wanted to return everything to their proper places before taking the next set of files out, I had to leave the copier open to anyone in the building. No fair - I don't have time to share access to the copier with anyone, I have 51 IEP's to copy! The first 3 grades were smooth sailing, with the exception of needing a little assistance on where to find more paper. And then came 4th grade... I pulled the files as quickly as possible and walked toward the copy room. There in front of me stood my first road block. One of the teachers had decided to jump in on my copy machine time and she wasn't just making one copy. It was going to be a while and then she warned me that someone else was in line after her! Oh no! What am I going to do now? I smiled and asked her to let me know when she was finished, being as polite as possible and walked back to my room. Trust me, there are a ton of other things I could do with my time, I just REALLY wanted to get this done today! So, defeated, I started working on other tasks but with the thought of finishing this task never leaving the top of my list. Periodically, I'd take a walk past the copy room to check on the availability of the copy machine. Finally, after about an hour and a half, I carried the files down with me and there it was, like a present from God, an empty copier. I cranked out 4th grade and hurried for 5th! I felt like I was running a 5k! I took a deep breath and walked back to the copy machine to finish the last grade. I turned the corner and ahead of me I see one of the secretaries about to walk in and start copying student handbooks - at least 60 some pages for every student in the school! Not again - there is no way I was going to get this done before the end of the day now! Luckily, her and I have been talking throughout the day and I took my chance and asked her if I could cut in front of her for about ten minutes to finish up the last set of IEP's I needed to copy. I just about hugged and kissed her when she said "sure!", without hesitation! Finally, I had all the IEP's copied and ready be filed in my new filing system! Tomorrow, I'll work on putting them in the files!



It's such a relief when you finish such a big task. I just wanted to have the IEP's copied before the first day of school, even though it really wasn't necessary. In the end, when I looked at the stacks of IEP's on my table, it didn't look as bad as I made it out to be. Somehow I have a feeling that the battles I will fight with the copy machine and my alarm clock will continue throughout the school year. But nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, will keep me from enjoying and loving every minute of this dream job, even if I am absolutely exhausted.