Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Summer, in a Nutshell (and school)

First things first: quick recap of summer...

Hung out with Tristan a lot during the first few weeks of being home. Morgantown. Visited Horace and the family. Shawn and Kat's wedding and subsequent NE trip. Ribs. Costa Rica. Poker. Captain Zero. More ribs. Skin products, Brittany, and expensive rental car. The end.

So now I'm back in ol' Shanghers and loving it once more. New teachers are here, old teachers are here, and the same sense of community has returned triple-fold with the new teacher's dorm, which houses nearly all of us. I've got to say, it's the most baller I've felt in quite some time, and I now have a shower big enough to clean several small ponies.

My kids are fabulous as well. The All-Supervising-Powers-That-Be thought it unwise to let me be in charge of the art projects once again (they explained to us in an excruciating lecture exactly how they made our schedules, but uh, I was too busy trying to drown myself in lukewarm instant coffee), so now I'm teaching three geography classes, an English, and an ESL. I love my English class, and I actually look forward to our longer classes together because they put me in such a good mood. I'm okay with the geographies. ESL is a bit of a chore, but one should expect to learn life lessons in the most unexpected places. Example:

Assignment: Make a sentence with the word "then."

Answer by Andy, 6th grade: "A dollop of romance now and then is good for everybody."

Then there are the changes. The elementary school now has a ball pit, which I discovered today. The back gate is open between 4:30 and 8, which is fantastic for trips to Trust-Mart. All the same old shenanigans apply.

Next up, birthday festivities.

1 comment:

Horace said...

We had a great time seeing you: the kids wear their sarongs around the house daily, and I use my opera-mask-bottle-opener whenever I get the chance!

Keep in touch...