Big Move, Good Kids

If you know me well, you know I hate moving. I stayed in the same apartment for all five years I was at BYU.

I lived alone in my Murray apartment for two years even though my rent went WAY up the second year. I just signed a lease for my apartment I've been in for two years. 

I also have been in my classroom for four years.

The principal approached me about switching rooms to the one straight underneath me, which basically meant that it would be the same amount of space, closet room, etc. He later said I didn't have to move, because the teacher who he wanted to take my room didn't want to move. 

I decided to go ahead with the move anyway because SMARTBoard. I also think it's good to change even though I hate it. I ended up packing up all my things--professional development books, party supplies, thesauruses, all office supplies like paper, markers, pencils, paper clips, etc. and planned on making the move.

This was a horrible nightmare because, although I cleaned when I first came to my room, and got rid of many years of accumulation, there was still some 30 year old stuff left in there. So some students and I had to take three or four trips to the dumpster to throw it all away. 

The nightmare extended further when the person whose room I was moving into hadn't made the same effort to clear out and organize her classroom as I had done in mine. Which basically means I left a room that I cleaned, and moved into someone else's mess. 

If the mess I was left with wasn't bad enough, I also wanted desks in my room, not tables. The custodians requested I have students do as much of this as possible because they don't have time in the summer. They said they could move the desks if students weren't available to do so. 

All I was going to worry about on my last day, then, was getting the boxes and decorations and things into the new room. I would let the custodians deal with my desk, student desks, and the filing cabinets. 

Imagine my surprise when a few students who were hanging out instead of watching their movie, were willing to help me.

I don't think I can adequately explain how much these kids did, and how much stress they took off of me. They moved all the tables and chairs out of the new room. They moved down almost all my desks from my room, two at a time (around 36 desks). They brought down all my boxes. They took out trash, like I mentioned before. They did so much more than I had planned on doing myself. Their work made it so I could focus on attempting to lump all the previous teacher's stuff into a pile to make room for my stuff. 

I honestly do not know what I would have done without them. I'd have a LOT of work waiting for me when I come back in August, that's for sure. Like new school years aren't already stressful enough, right? They saved me. 

Since I wasn't expecting their help, I didn't have anything to give to them as payment. So today I got each of them a McDonald's gift card, and am putting that in a thank you card and mailing it to them. I am sure they wanted to take it easy and have fun on their last day of school, so that makes me even more grateful to them for their help and positive attitudes. There are still some good kids left in the world, and I love them!