Sorrow's native son, he will not smile for anyone

The major achievement of my day was making it through the day without napping after work. First time this week!

My assistant and I continued with the preparations. Damn, this blog is already like a damn Grisham novel, isn't it? Thrill as we clean out dried-up and stinky old paint pots left from last year! Tremble as I use the paper cutter to make journal covers! Gasp in awe as I wait around for the school's servers to come back online so I can print! Cheer as I write the kids' names on every conceivable surface in the room!

Also our team, teachers and assistants, went out for lunch. I think I may have mentioned that Prestigius hires a disproportionately high percentage of preposterously good-looking young women, and my team exemplifies that (except me, Ms. Hatfield who is a grandmotherly type, and her assistant who is the great-grandmotherly type). So on that basis alone it's nice to hang out with the team; but I thought it was good to get some social bonding in. It was a good time. Everyone was cheerful and there was none of that awkwardness you sometimes get with co-workers out socially. All good, except one of our colleagues didn't go.

Last year's team was very tight-knit, cheerful and bantering. Unlike a lot of grade level teams, we genuinely got along. But then Ms. Kent had her second child, and she took her maternity leave, and should return this year as an in-house substitute. Her place has been taken by Ms. Blah, who was on our team my first year, then was transferred to first grade and now is back again. She was and remains excessively negative and complains about everything, constantly interpreting every request from admin as an example of their incompetence and generally giving off the air of being bitter and put-upon. I don't like being around people like that. Hopefully we can still make it as a team this year.