I'm reading Justin Hollander's New York Times essay "Long Live Paper"! Thankfully technology allows us to increase our depth of knowledge, but paper reading is a comfort beside the power outages of hurricane Sandy's fierce visit.

Plans include: sleeping in, cooking all day, enjoying time with stranded houseguests, and lesson planning!

Did extra food shopping Saturday night anticipating the school closure. I have cooked more than I usually am able to. Cleaning the apartment and spending more quality time with the kids have been nice. Now that school is closed Tuesday as well, I can relax a little more and spread my grading and lesson planning out amongst the 2 days.

On the phone planning a series of play dates with neighborhood friends, staggered through the day to keep the 11-year old happy. It's also my bribe to cajole her into doing some extra math problems and finish her homework. 6th grade is killing us :) I am also grading papers etc and catching up with my own classwork. And trying to do some writing on the side although that's hard with everyone interrupting me all the time. Played Apples to Apples and the Wii. Cooked, then cooked some more. Planning to bake later--so 11 year old and friends can help. Sigh! Can't wait for these kids to go back.

I have been following the storm aftermath and working on the computer. I went to help in two shelters in Brooklyn, but they were not able to use me today. I will check again at them tomorrow.

I'm a third grade teacher. I am spending some much needed time with my 16 month old baby. I'm pretending we are living in a European society with proper child care leave, building large cardboard houses, baking cookies, exploring tape and stickers and velcro.

Parent. Running around in the drizzle on the turf on 4th avenue btween 3r and 4th streets, walking around the neighborhood inspecting and photographing the damage, buying coffee from independent purveyors, and oh yeah, TV and Wii. Sigh.

Firstly, I think there is a misprint --this is only the 2nd day in row. So far, I have recovered from Sept. 8th thru open-school with much needed sleep. I have gotten my lessons done for the next week and a half including extension activities. Tomorrow, it's sleep, laundry and grading. If the gym is open, I'll go there for an hr. or else I'll take another stroll around the neighborhood and stop by the local cafe for a hit.. If I'm done well before noon and the gym isn't open --almost all the cardio runs on electricity-- then I'm making stuffed shells and clean the apt. and then work on the triptych project. I'm an artist who supports herself as an English/ESL teacher. I'm expecting to return to work on Thurs. but the way the MTA is describing the flooding in the train tubes under the rivers. I don't know.

I brought my 93 year old mother to my apartment in Briarwood, Queens to weather the storm away from scary trees in her New Hyde Park, Nassau neighborhood. We've been sitting and talking at our kitchen table. My husband and I never use the kitchen table, so it's kind of nice. A tree at her curb fell on the roof, so in addition to the fact that Briarwood never lost power and New Hyde Park did, we would have been terrified by the falling tree.

I work at M.S. 217 The Green Magnet in Briarwood and run 2 staircase gardens, so I went up to school to check on the gardens. Our garlic is doing fine, but the evacuees I spoke to were unhappy. They talked about only getting small bowls of food, and feeling worried about sleeping with their children near people who they felt were emotionally and mentally unstable. One man talked of calling the mayor. They were also upset that they had evacuated from the Rockaways quickly and didn't bring money. The cots didn't look too comfortable. I felt or ray for them and I wish I had given them the $15 I had in my pocket.

I cleaned up the garbage from our Staircase and Pollinators' Gardens, and also picked up a number of beer bottles and other garbage from the front of the school. I met two recent graduates who were volunteering for community service credits.

My students send me work via google docs, so I've spent some time looking at their work. I'm often disappointed when I first look, so I didn't make many comments yet. I have a lot more reading of student work to do tomorrow and figuring out what to say about the work. I did get upset with one child's google presentation that was supposed to be her own photographs and poetry. I found she plagiarized both photos and poem and read my response to her to my mother. My mother encouraged me to be more positive than upset with her. I listened and only hope my encouragement that she's capable of her own good work will encourage her to do her own photographs and writing. We'll see.

Where will the evacuees go, if they leave. I feel bad for the evacuees and lasso hope the rooms are in good shape when the students and teachers return. My principal wrote that he's been going to school to make sure everything's okay

After days of intermittent reading, spending time with friends, and watching Bunheads, we finally concluded home schooling is in order. Our 13 year old had school from 9 - 3 today, so our 10 year old has now spent the morning doing spelling, IXL math, reading and doing a reading response, and is now researching Zimbabwe. After explaining place values and working through the frustrations of reducing fractions, my already great respect for teachers has only increased. We had a ratio of 2 adults to 1 child and between curriculum planning and implementation, the challenge was evident. My best to all NYC teachers!