End of School aka Moving a Library..

Today was the last day of school! Thank god! Don't get me wrong, I have loved working at ASD and am so excited to be going back in the fall (and I am actually moving into a Kindergarten classroom! Not as a teacher, unfortunately, but with a really wonderful teacher as her aid or 'classroom paraprofessional' as they are called here). However, the last two weeks have been pretty hellacious. The school will be moving to a new campus next year (a brand new, currently under construction state-of-the-art campus which is supposed to be amazing), so, the last two weeks have been preparing the school for the move. AKA, packing! I am quite the experienced mover, having moved 8 times in the last 5 years. And I am not afraid to get sweaty and move heavy boxes, even to my own health detriment (physical and mental -- moving with Jared always results in sprained ankles and near break-ups with lots of screaming and swearing to the point of domestic disturbance... Suffice to say, next time, movers will be hired, but I digress.)... However, packing a 25,000 volume library is a little different than moving my 1 bedroom apartment. When I accepted the job to work in the library a couple months ago, I'm pretty sure "helping pack hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books" was not in the job description. Oh well. The whole experience put in perspective my own moves, and also reminded me that I don't want anything to do with moving again for as long as possible (read, we will be staying in our current apartment in Dubai for as long as we are in Dubai, no exceptions). Because the whole packing and moving the ASD Elementary Library experience consumed such a large portion of my mind and time, I feel that I need to share some photos so you can get an idea of how much fun it was...

The mountain of boxes waiting to be packed... Let the fun begin!

Me, Natasha (the librarian), Mara, and Santha (the other aids).

We can't take all the credit for the packing, however, as we did have the help of professional movers for three days, who actually packed all the books. This was a huge help, although, with the exception of the supervisors, none of the movers spoke any English. And packing books in a library is actually a pretty big deal because in order to make the unpacking part not a total nightmare, the books needs to be packed by section, in order. Slight problem when the person packing them does not speak English or have a clue what the Dewey Decimal System is. So, each of us was working side-by-side with one of the movers the whole time. I got to know my moving buddy (a very quiet Indian man) quite well by the end of our 3 days working 1 foot away from each other.

The "everything else" that we had to pack...

And the pros only packed the books. We had to pack everything else in the library, which does not seem like a ton, but it actually is, and includes really annoying things to pack like globes and hundreds of posters. Lots of fun. Oh, and everything had to be labeled with special specific codes so that it will end up in the right place. When we started I seriously never thought we would get it all done.

Climbing on our mountain before saying good-bye.

Well, somehow we did manage to get everything done. I was truly shocked. Something like 500 boxes of books (properly color-coded, numbered, and labeled) and probably another 75 or so of just other library 'stuff'. I think I am grateful to not be working in the library next year so I don't have to be on the receiving end of all those boxes. I will really missing working with the lovely ladies I worked with in the library though. All so nice and such a great team together. It was sad to say goodbye for the summer (Natasha was headed to Scotland and the US, Mara was headed to Latvia, and Santha was headed to India), but I will look forward to seeing them all again in September at the new campus. And now that school is out, I will finally have time to get everything else caught up, so, although I will be sweating it out in Dubai, I will relish having down time. But first, I think I need to get a massage after all that lifting...