September? Already?

In the interim between when I posted and now, it has become September. And I've been busy. Perhaps not too busy to post, but I haven't had the interest over the summer to do so since it was so hot, although this was the first summer in three in Southern Nevada that I've finally learned to at least tolerate the season. That was helped along by the air conditioning going out in my family's apartment the night before the hottest day of the year.

Fortunately, we made enough noise that we were pushed to the top of the list the next day for repairs and even though it was unbearable, even with soaking t-shirts and having lots of water in many different ways (including splashing oneself), I finally began to understand the heat here. You can't fight it, but you can protect yourself enough against it so that it doesn't become as monstrous as it usually is. More water, certainly, but also not putting so much stock in it, like worrying about how hot it's going to get. It's the summer. It's what it is. At least in the winter, you can be outside for a few minutes longer if you're bundled up enough. I'm going to be learning that soon enough.

And the reason I'm going to be learning that soon enough is that I finally got a job at an elementary school here in Henderson, close enough to my own neighborhood! Of course, that will change when we move from our current residence back to where we used to live last year, and then I'll be even closer to this elementary school, although the closeness is debatable. But consider this: Right now, in the mornings, I take the bus to just after the small Green Valley and Silver Springs intersection, across the street from Pacific Islands, which is where we're moving back to early next year, if not sooner, depending on if our current apartment complex will let us out of our lease owing to mold and other issues inside this apartment. We've contacted a few other people to see if it can be done, including the Office of the Ombudsman here in Nevada, which seems to oversee apartrment complexes as well.

Anyway, taking the bus to Green Valley and Silver Springs, I walk to the Green Valley and Silver Springs intersection, cross it, then walk to the Green Valley and Robindale intersection, and cross the street to Robindale. It's a little over a mile to my school, which lately has been 25 minutes. Sometimes I get to time it, and sometimes the music teacher picks me up on the way, usually about a half mile there. I'm becoming more and more well known in this school, and it's the kind of school where everyone is amenable toward everyone else. It's nice to work in this kind of atmosphere.

The job is what I've wanted for so long: I'm a library aide! Every single day, I get to work in a library, and the Friday before last was Staff Development Day across the entire school district, so not only were there no students that day, but teachers and specialists alike went to meetings elsewhere, including my librarian, so it was the first time I had a library all to myself that wasn't at home! I nearly counted my two weeks and a handful of days as a substitute library aide at Rowe Elementary two school years ago, when that school didn't have a librarian in the budget, so the library aide ran everything. However, in that case, I only had the library to myself in the morning. This was an entire day! And it went way too fast.

I love my new library. The nonfiction section is in the central part of the library, right when you walk in, and it surrounds the tables in the middle and the storytime rug area to the right. Then on the other side of the library is the rest of the nonfiction section on the left, the fiction section on the upper right, and the picture books on the lower right. There's also room on the top of the stacks to put books that might be interesting for the kids, so I also have a lot of fun doing that. And unlike volunteering every Saturday morning at the Green Valley Library, nobody changes my picks. It's all my own. They've all gotten a fair amount of traction, and I'd say that at least 10 books that I put up top were checked out. A good average. Tomorrow, since the first period of the day in the library is a prep period, I'm going to take down all the books and replace them with others. I've come up with a method in which the three books on top of each section of the stacks represents the three sets of shelves in those sections. So the first book represents the first shelf, the second book the second shelf, and the third book the third shelf. It makes it easier not to have to put a book away in a section far away from that particular part of the stack.

Plus, this week, the Scholastic Book Fair begins on Friday, and everything needed for the Book Fair is being delivered on Wednesday. There'll be a lot of boxes to open up, and a lot of books to put on the rolling metal bookcases provided. I can't wait to see what appears for sale besides what was advertised on the Book Fair DVD shown to the students, as well as what was in the flyer.

I'm also still writing book reviews, which is always worthwhile, and still reading, of course. This is only the beginning, I'm sure, and I'm not only glad to have this job, but also to see where it will take me.