War of the Weather, Part Deux

I was so relieved when finally, sometime after the middle of September, it was finally cool enough to not have the air conditioner on all day long. I was almost more relieved to not have to battle my co-workers over the buttons on the good 'ol aircon. We could all finally relax with the windows open and the fans blowing the nice fall air around the classrooms.

I didn't mention it before, but there are some changes going on at my school as the new owner arranges things the way he likes them to be. He likes the whiteboards at the opposite ends of the classroom. He likes to switch up the cabinets. He likes a new computer in the Staff Room and the old computer in the TV room. He likes a DVD player and large screen projector in the TV room. I like these things, too. I hope he's going to eventually like to paint this place, because it's a rat-hole. I'd like it if he'd like to hire a troop of adjummas to come and give this place a good clean-down. Seriously. Rat-HOLE! I don't like, however, how he repositioned the fans in every classroom so they're right beside the windows. If you set them on rotate now, they're blowing out onto to street. I can't see how that's helping, unless, like - it's a very still day on the outside.

Today is a nice day. It's really not autumn weather by my Canadian instinct. It's more like early summer save for the leaves that are changing colour instead of blooming; it's currently 26 degrees (79 Fahrenheit) under sunny skies, 42% humidity and a nice 14k/hr breeze. On the other hand, Monday afternoon in my hometown of Toronto is forecast to be 13 degrees (43F) under cloudy skies. Now that's fall!

Today I walked into the Teacher's Room to start my work week and something smelled funny. Burney. Electrical. "What's what smell?" I asked my boss. He said "huh?" and I said "oh yah, you don't speak English hey?" So I went to investigate.

Lobby: negative, classrooms: negative, hallway: negative, Teacher's Room: smokey-burney-sockety....and the I spotted it: the portable electric heaters we roll into the classrooms in the winter. It was out - sitting beside the new teacher's desk - and IT WAS ON!!!

"You are SHITTING me!" I said to the heater, as if it had rolled itself out from storage and flipped it's own switch. I reached around and turned it off. When the new teacher - sporting a coat zipped up to her chin - came back into the Teacher's Room I said "I turned your heater off." She said she was freezing and showed me her goosebumped arms. I told her she should bring a couple blankets to wear, because if we had the heat on I was going to die. I don't know what's going to happen, but it might come down to me not spending any time in the windowless Staff Room, which is already the warmest place in the school by far. I still haven't busted out a fall jacket to wear in the evenings when it's still about 14C overnight, and my delicate co-worker is wearing coats and wants to ride around on the wheelie-heater? Damn, I'm in trouble.