I always assume TJ's on the weekend will be packed.

True. I think usually I go more in the middle of the day, when people are doing other things.

I have never been to a TJ's and not had it been packed, to my eye. Of course, I live in the desert, so my expectations may be skewed.

OTOH, the big name drummer who I visited in Nashville? His wife works at TJ's (for the insurance, she actually has a library science degree and hopes to get into the Nashville system, anybody have connections? Forgot to ask Kate about it when we were visiting.) and gave me pumpkin spice chai and candy cane green tea out of her stash. Whoot!

Kids are outside yelling their fool heads off. As it should be. I'm hiding inside.

At work, they will no longer support printers in classrooms. So if you want toner, you have to buy it yourself.

No. Seriously. So in addition to buying paper, books, tissues, pens, copy paper for my students, I also have to buy toner now? That being said, I have a remanned toner cartridge for my printer and for a classroom copier I have sitting on my table. Finals start monday. I have not been able to copy or print this week.

Some times, I think, I just don't want to teach that much.

WTF, Kat, that's stupid. (The school lack of funding, that is, not you not wanting to teach.) It baffles me why we continue to place education at such a low priority in this country. It fucking matters, peoples!

Seriously. That's just crazy.

What happens if the teachers say,"No," to buying all that stuff. Do the kids just not learn? Do the teachers get fired? It seems unreasonable. I do web work and my employer doesn't expect me to pay for the server space.

Well, what happens is yes, the kids don't have access to the stuff I need to do my job. So if I can't make copies, then what happens is that the final is projected on the wall (I don't have a screen) and the kids just cope. On a MC final that means they all have to proceed at the same pace.

No tissues means they use mine. I fixed the tissue/lined paper issue this year by giving extra credit and now I have enough paper for 3 or 4 years and enough tissue for 2.

Books? Well, then, no books and no printing means I'm stuck teaching articles from a reader from 1998 on juvenile justice instead of reading current articles out now. It means we don't read Stiff but we read.... let me remember what's in the book room....Lord Jim or All the President's Men. Fine books but not what I could teach well or what meets the standards.

To illustrate: there is a copier on my floor that works mostly. When I walk to the copier, I can expect for there to be no paper in it. So I have to take paper of my own, copy, then take paper out. What other organization in the US do you have to do that for? When I worked at Wyeth Ayerst and I printed something, I did not have to take some of my paper, put it in, then take it back out so other people wouldn't use and I wouldn't have any left.

Teachers are commonly given a ream of paper or two a month. Who DOES that?

Good lord, how ridiculous. If the US is being all super test focused it seems like we should at least pony up for the paper and the printing of them.

That's terrible management practice, if we want to be running schools like a business. Which I don't, but that seems to be the model people want to use to justify shit like that. Argh.

Kat,

check shoplet.com for prices on recycled toner. I have been pretty happy with their prices. If you get other teachers to pitch in, you might be able to get a good educational rate. Staples may also be a good resource if you are shopping locally.