ChrisCam

Parent's Night tonight! I'm a little nervous but I'm sure it'll be fine. If I can decide what to wear...

Teacher: "Jefferson freed Sally Hemmings sons because they were really his children."
Kid: "Oh. When did they get married?"
Teacher: "They weren't married."
Class practically in unison: "If they weren't married, how could they have babies together???"
Teacher: "Look! Time for recess!"

Hahahahahahahahaha.

Due to long meetings, my feet currently aren't in intense pain.

Silver lining to everything, yo.

We're buddies with a kindergarten class, and one of my sweet boys is paired with a small girl. To keep her amused, while the rest played checkers or built cities with blocks, he allowed himself to be part of dressup. A sweeping hat, a pink jeweled tiara to match the pink feathered boa, strips of silky material would about him--the little girls couldn't stop laughing and batting their eyes, and even after the rest of the outfit was off he kept the tiara on for a while. What a cutie!

And today at recess, one of my little girls come running up. "I NEED YOU RIGHT NOW," she says in the loudest surreptitious whisper you've ever heard. Turned out that she'd split the seam of her crotch right in two during an energetic turn on the tire swing, and we went off on a search for safety pins and a jacket long enough to cover her. I tried not to laugh, but really...

And I'm having either a battle with a cold or allergies or something, because I've been sneezing all day. After the first few shocked silences after my sneezes, now the kids smirk and say, "That is a LOUD sneeze." I was talking to one of the other teachers about it, and he was like, "THAT WAS YOU??? That echoed in OUR room!" Some things never change.

As much as I love it here, I'm lonely missing my Thetas and Dartmouth and family and CSH friends...I miss you guys!!!

"The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, you dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again.
That is their mystery and their magic."

"The God of Small Things," Arundhati Roy

So with a combination of going to bed insanely early and early bird roommates, I have woken up early two days in a row. (If this feels like Mich's posts of last spring, you're right.) At 9:30 on Saturday morning, I woke up. Refreshed, and ready to get out of bed. After partying on Friday night. And drinking. Without an alarm. Granted, I had been tipsy by 10 and came home at 11:30, but still---I don't think that's EVER happened before. And again on Saturday, awake and aware by 10. Amaaazing.

Friday night was fun, with beirut and meeting new people (mostly the boys' girlfriends) and hanging out with other teachers. I was teased into playing beirut a few too many times, and my wine glass kept getting refilled, and I turned into my boob-grabbing-ass-slapping-sexful-dancing self a whoooole lot sooner than I'd planned. Generally I allow people to get to know me a little first! On Sat. morning the roommates bounded in, jumped on the bed, and were like--"Whoa! What happened to YOU with a little wine in you??"

We've decided that we've sped up our knowing each other scale and are somewhere between 6 months and 2 years now of friendship. Not to jinx anything, but they're great and we get along well and they're super fun, outgoing, and will likely make me outgoing a little more often. :-) They also drink like champs, so I'm waaay behind there.

Saturday we watched a movie. (Read: I was a blubbering fool in front of a heavily edited TV version of Armageddon, which we watched on TV even though I had the DVD a house away.) And yes, Vac, had pizza and the pizza was passable. Not New York, but thin crust and decent cheese.

Sunday I've been doing laundry and going to the library and laying out on the postage stamp lawn sunning myself. I'll talk about the library part on WRWF! If I ever get my act together. Hope your weekends are lovely!

"Aaah, teacher, she's trying to EAT ME."

"He looks like a brownie and I want to EAT HIM!" Small Chinese girl to small black boy. Kids are hilarious, if not too PC, bless them.

"GUESS WHAT?? Some of the hurricane came to my house today!!" Second grader

No, kiddo, that was just a little rain. Confused and very sweet.

I would like to report that I just got a hit on this website for someone searching "nervous breakdown party." That cracked me up.

How do more teachers not turn into homicidal maniacs if their feet always hurt as much as mine do? I need to brush my teeth, and change, and plug in the computer so it doesn't die, but ONE MORE STEP WILL BE AGONY. I'll get up to plug the heating pad in and wrap it around my feetsies, no way I'm making it down the hall though.

I walked in tonight and almost cried with joy because I realized that the weekend's combined leftovers mean dinner tomorrow, no cooking and no ordering (and no spending). It's the little things, really.

I was standing outside watching four square when I glimpsed a reflection off of one of the doors of a woman in a black skirt, white blouse, looking professional and teacherly, and I swear that it took me about seven seconds of looking around wondering who was out there with me on the playground before I realized that it WAS me.

I want to tell stories about my kids but I don't want to get fired. So if you want to know them, let me know. ;-)

I am alive and mostly well! My feet hurt. It's exhausting to get up when it's still dark and spend the day wrangling children. I loved being a camp counselor and thought teaching would be a lot like that in some ways, but the whole tenor is different when I'm "Miss" instead of Christine. I'm not their buddies, nor is that my goal, so I find myself at loose ends sometimes when I don't feel like I'm enough of an adult and I'm dying to play four-square and hang out on the playground and get hugs, and they look at me like a REAL teacher and offer a somber handshake as I stick them on the bus. ("A handshake? Girl, we're working on hugs this week.") I mean, I know I sort of am a real teacher, but it doesn't make it any less scary!! Praises that I'm not handling a classroom on my own like I was thiiiiiis close to doing.

My roommates are funny and cool. I'm enjoying them, and thank GOD there are no H-bombs or peanut butter wars so far. No one's bitching about who takes out the garbage or does the dishes because we've all just been doing it for each other whenever. It makes a huge difference! Unfortunately, the plumbing isn't much better than Ireland, and both of our toilets have broken and attempted to flood.

Other than that the house is great, my head teacher is someone I think I'll really respect and enjoy, and the class is full of little characters. The faculty is mostly warm and really very wonderful; helpful and understanding.

So, yeah. I'm still here, I'm very tired, and I'm having a really good time. And...it's almost time for bed. ;-)

So tired.

The kids aren't even here yet and I fell asleep at 6 tonight.

I can already tell you what the scariest part of this whole endeavor is going to be. I have to dress myself every morning! Match a blouse and skirt or slacks and shoes and make the colors match and the styles work...oh lord.

That and feeding myself!

I'm going back to bed.

You know how when you know you can't use a bathroom, suddenly you really have to go?

I'm in my house in New Canaan! And we finally got Internet. No cable or phones yet, but let's get serious, this is the important part, yes?

Unfortunately, the first 30 seconds that the roommates were all actually in the same place at the same time (they haven't been here much this week), one of the roomies' boyfriend flooded the bathroom. So suddenly we had water overflowing, and pouring down into the hallway and additionally down the bathroom walls into the floor, into our kitchen cabinets directly below. EW.

Now I went to buy dinner and I'm going to go make it, and again, I am the only one here. Sigh.

But I'm having a good time! I'll post pictures as soon as everything's a little more in order. Blitz me if you want to know my address to send me love! :-)