Superman and Me

It turns out that Superman and I have something in common.

Shortly after I accepted my new teaching position, the principal called to discuss some details he'd been working on.  The job was created because of the insane number of students at the school so it shouldn't have been surprising to learn that my options for office space were extremely limited.

In the end, he didn't really give me any option other than "the phone booth."

First of all, it's not a booth.  It's a very small room.  Think walk-in closet.  But the principal kept calling it a phone booth, which sounds so much worse--but hilarious!  It was the perfect metaphor, really, of how I was feeling coming into this position; I was the leftover teacher with the leftover job being stuffed in a phone booth.  All I could do was laugh.

That's what you do when you're the joke of the school.  News traveled quickly that my office was the phone booth.  Staff members couldn't believe it was really true.  And since the "booth" is located within the teacher's lounge, there is frequent traffic outside my office.  Constant comments and many sympathies were expressed in the first two days of school.

But then I did some decorating.

Since a certain superhero has been known to emerge from phone booths, I decided to go with a Superman theme to make this the place that I turn into SuperTeacher.

Before:

And after:

The view of my desk before:

And after:

I found the cutest SuperTeacher logo online and used it to add some cute details:

This is the view from the desk side of the "booth":

The view from the door coming into the staff lounge:

No, it's not ideal.  Teachers come into the lounge to visit and vent with one another.  I overhear a lot of conversation.  It's not quiet and it's rather stuffy.  But once reading groups start at the beginning of October, I really won't be in my office much.  And besides that, I think I've created a happy, cozy space.

The parade of teachers coming through seem to like what I've done with the place.  And no one seems to feel as sorry for me anymore.   Thank goodness.

I'm not a leftover.  I'm SuperTeacher!