Monday

This is when the summer feels like it's really started for me at work.

In some ways, things haven't changed much at all. I work every day for the next two weeks except this Thursday, when Lisa has jury duty. Every one in my office, in fact, will be working. On a day to day basis I don't see students anyway, and I don't always see any classroom teachers, either. So in many ways, it'll be like any other Monday.

And to top it all off, this is going to be the most frenetic summer of work for me ever. Between now and the first day of school on August 17, I have to complete the following:

1. work with maintenance to install 38 projectors in classrooms
2. install 23 wireless access points and configure
3. replace the switches in one of the district's network closets
4. install a new server in a new rolling rack and configure the server
5. move several other servers into that rack
6. install 5 new administrator workstations
7. consolidate 8 aging network servers down to 2
8. complete the attendance reports for THIS year
9. set up the Student Information System software in preparation for NEXT year
10. set up new account for new employees and delete accounts of old employees
11. help set up and run a statewide technology conference for about 600 attendees.
12. prepare and present one session during that conference.
13. And actually, there are about 15 other things, but I think you get the picture

And I have to do all of that without my technician and School Technology Coordinators, who don't work in the summer. So in some ways I'm as stressed as ever. But there ARE a few things that make this time feel different:

• We start and finish work an hour earlier than during the school year, meaning that I get home in the middle of the afternoon.
• I don't wear a suit and tie on days when students are not in session.
• And most importantly, there are only about 40 people district wide working on any given day rather than 300 people. That means that I am interrupted far less often in the summer than during the regular school year, so I am able to get more done in the same amount of time.

So I'm glad that summer has finally arrived so that I can relax and take it easy.

I just hope I survive it...