Sisters

“The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.”
― Jay McInerney, The Last of the Savages  

Well, it’s been a pretty eventful week!  I realized only today that I’d neglected to post last weekend and got a few emails wondering where I disappeared to. I’m still here, just staying busy.

I have never particularly wanted children of my own, probably for the same reason I don’t want a pet. I don’t plan ahead very well and acquiring either a child or a pet would mean planning on at least one thing for the next fifteen to eighteen years. I’d have to take something else into consideration when making decisions. Come to think of it, that’s also a factor in my love life (or lack thereof). I realized last week that, despite my not wanting kids, when I inherited my classroom I also inadvertently inherited the lives of nine small children. Their problems, their discipline, their mood swings, their quarrels, and, for better or worse, their futures. I’m the starting gate for the rest of their education and I worry every day about the way I handle them, what kind of world I’ll send them into and with what tools. Because of this sense of extreme responsibility I take my job as teacher very seriously and my students are advancing faster than I can write lesson plans. Since October 10^th they have been doing math, science experiments, penmanship, and phonics each day and I keep waiting for that wall when they say “enough is enough! We can’t cram anything more into our heads!” but it hasn’t come yet.

That's Sara on the right

My little sister Sara came home on Wednesday night after being in Montana for the past two years, which is pretty cool, and one of the first things I did was bring her to my class. The kids were thrilled to have a new person to play with especially my “sister princess” as they kept calling her.

With Sara back in town the whole family is under one roof for the first time in about seven years, maybe more. I pulled the futon mattress out of the Jetta (which sits forlornly idle at the top of the driveway) and Sara is in her teenage bed while we share the same small room strewn with clothes and heavy blankets. She’s going to be around for about a month and come November 1^st she’ll be helping me move into my new apartment! I found a place ten minutes walk from work for $450/month (with nothing included, oh well). The girl I’ll be living with seems very nice, if a little quirky. When I viewed the place she was making her costume for the renaissance fair and in the evenings she likes to crochet. He place (My place!) smelled so strongly of sandalwood that when I got off the bus an hour later Dad thought I’d been smoking pot. This apartment will cut almost two hours a day off my commute time. Yeah!

Alright, Sara wants to go apple picking and I have lesson plans to write. Keep on Truckin’