Thursday, June 4, 2009

This is the DARK side after all.....

I have definitely realized over the last week that I am now thoroughly and completely Seattle-ized. Seattleites have a very narrow window of comfort when it comes to temperature - roughly between 68 and 73 degrees. Hotter or colder than that and we whine. A lot.

It started heating up over Memorial Day weekend and it has been getting steadily warmer ever since. I open both the windows at night and close the windows and blinds during the day and my house turns into a cave that is slightly cooler than the outside temperature. I don't have air conditioning, which is usually not a problem here.

Two years ago I lived in Dallas, where the average temperature during the day July through October is 95 and the average humidity is 80-90%. Every building and every car has air conditioning. No one goes outside during the day in the city unless they are suicidal.

No one has air conditioning here. You've been hearing about how hot my classroom is, and today it hit about 90 degrees outside (very unusual for June here) so my classroom was hot and S.T.A.N.K.Y. I can keep my room cool until about 1:00 in the afternoon, halfway through 5th period, and then it heats up fast - 10-15 degrees in half an hour. My infamous 6th period has actually been pretty good about not complaining when it is brutally hot inside my room, but I do sympathize with them. I understand it's hard to work when it's hot and humid inside.

So today I made them a deal - we could go outside into the courtyard and they could work outside, but their work still had to be done by the end of the period and if it got out of control we would never go outside again. We spent a little over an hour in the courtyard and they did pretty well. It helped that two of the Problem Children were suspended (one until the end of the year!!). We came back inside for the last ten minutes of class and my classroom was never quite as hot as when we came back inside, away from the shade and the breeze. At that point it was just HOT and miserable.

It was hot enough that I actually heard a student say, "I wish it would rain..."

Me too. I wish it was cloudy and rainy and cold. Dark, in fact. The sun is already up at 5:15 when I get up and it doesn't get dark until around 9:30. It's kind of weird and makes me think I'm late all the time.

There are 12 days of school left....tomorrow is the last day for classwork and Monday we start the final.

3 comments:

carla said...

You are so close. You will make it! I've been hearing that it is usually warm from you and others from Oregon. I'd like for it to stop raining over here!

John Deere Mom said...

It is so miserable to try to work in the heat. Good luck...hope your last 12ish days fly by!

Melissa B. said...

As a Dallas Gal I have this to say about the heat: Bring it On! My sis and her family live in SFO, and I just can't get used to the cool temps, even when I stay for a month or more! DC has this humidity thing, though, which I really don't care for. BTW, don't forget: Please come on over and check out my Silly Sunday Sweepstakes!