Thursday, December 13, 2012

SILT: 13 December 2012 --Heaters and whatnot

Quick contextual note: Today began with a mass of confusion because all of the HS 2nd graders had to move over to the detached building so the workers could replace the classroom windows. As I had the first class, I showed up to find I was teaching ALL of the class instead of the usual half in one of the math classrooms.* And as if that wasn't enough of a change, the overhead heaters stopped working, so even though the kids had their winter coats on, we still had to deal with the cold. Yay.

-- I don't know who complains about the cold more; the students or the teachers. Both sets of people love to go on about it. I would think that they would've gotten used to the frigid climate by now. Hell, I'm from Ohio and Wisconsin and it's something we got to deal with. That's not to say that I don't loathe the ice and snow--I do, but of that's the price I pay for having excellent students and a great job, then so be it.

--The students wheeled in these big kerosene burning heaters to augment the overhead heaters that kept going in in and out. The fumes generated by these things calls for ventilation (lest we all get carbon monoxide poisoning), so we have to open an window, which thus defeats the purpose for having the damned thing in the first place.

--The students (and many teachers) are heat junkies: they have two heaters running, their winter coats on, hand warmers, and they're still cold. Me, I was ready to change into shorts a few times today.

--The overhead heaters don't work if the temperature goes below -10C. EVERY day for the past two weeks has seen temperatures below -10C. Strange and irritating.

--In something completely unrelated to the above, the Russian language has no word for privacy.

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