Rats...

Well, it's likely the scratching noises I heard emanating from behind the wall of my filing cabinet over the weekend were likely caused by rats. My lovely teaching colleague, Sandra, came to school today to find a rat hanging out in one of her bins of books. She had a typical response and jumped up on a table, only to watch as the rat climbed up a pole towards her air conditioning unit. I'm amazed I didn't hear screams...that's what I would have been doing if I saw one in my classroom. Screaming, and running out of the room. Then, probably, refusing to return until there was a carcass, preferably on a stake. One would think that with all the stray cats that live on our campus, rats would not be a problem. Guess again!

Other than that, I am doing my usual start-of-year procrastination. I look around my classroom at what needs to be done, then check internet, make travel plans for literacy coach training in October, answer some emails, walk to the health office for the mandatory HIV test, go get another coffee from Peter in the library, walk to the pool to check the summer hours, look around the classroom some more, check last spring's orders to see what should be coming in, and then finally get a burst of inspiration and make a list of what my aide can do to help tomorrow. Oh, and I did move a bit of furniture around and thought a little more about how I'd like to arrange the room. I am going to be very sad when we move into our new building next year. My current classroom is HUGE; cathedral ceilings, high windows with lots of bright light, lots of open space (it had been a resource center and two offices before being converted for my class), and plenty of room for little bodies to move around. Tomorrow I'm going on a tour of the new building and can see just how much smaller my classroom will be...sniff, sniff!

Other than school, Cairo is hot. I'm currently finding ways to avoid cooking. I'm keeping busy outside of work with Howie, the hash (plug for HASH BALL ON OCTOBER 15, planned by yours truly), exercise, and watching movies and TV shows on my computer. It's amazing how quickly I fall back into my Cairo life and routine.