My Life as a Teacher: I'm done painting! (my walls)

This post comes a few days late, but this past Tuesday I finally completed the painting of the walls! It was some furious throwing on of the paint towards the end because I had a 2:30 deadline (we were to leave for Atlanta at 4:00 and I needed to shower and pack.) I didn't get started until a little after 10:00 on Tuesday, and I needed to finish taping the two purple walls as well as scrape hot glue (I'm not going to get started on the hot glue right now, but suffice it to say that it is one of my all-time biggest pet peeves and I pretty much despise having to scrape the indestructible and often times un-attachable globs off of the walls.)

These two walls also presented a unique challenge because of the floor-to-almost-ceiling cabinets. I ended up climbing on a chair to a desk to the top of my filing cabinet in order to reach the foot and half of wall behind the giant cabinets. I also had to clean the tops of those guys, which were absolutely covered in dust and grime. Due to the dusty/dirty nature of the typical middle school classroom, I was not surprised. Objects get coated in dust in a week's time, and no doubt these hadn't been cleaned in years. Actually, they might have been cleaned a month ago and I don't think it would have mattered. This school seems to spew dust out of every possible crack and crevice, not to mention the AC units, where they change the filters ONCE A YEAR. That's it- we get clean air for a few weeks once a year.

So, even though you can't see it, the cabinet tops are now sparkling like new! (As sparkling as unfinished wood is going to get with Windex and paper towels.) The school is not open today or over the weekend, which means I will be going up early Monday morning to pull off the blue tape and finally see the room in all of its purple and green glory. Then, it is time to get the shelves and extra desks painted. After that, I can finally start unpacking and organized the room! Until then, here are a few before and after shots.