Summer has arrived.
No, not that summer. I'm still very much freezing my little toes off most days. I mean Summer is here. As in Summer, my friend since that hectic last year of musical madness at Chico State.
It has been wonderful to see her. She arrived in England on Thursday, and, bless her, found her way to Burnham-on-Crouch, having never been in England before. I was just starting to worry that I had not heard from her (that and the headline on yahoo.com about foul weather causing flight cancellations in the Great Lake states, where she had a layover...) when a call came through for me. Turns out Summer had found her way to Burnham and was waiting for me at the co-op!! I giggled the whole 5-minute walk to town. I'd been starting to get worried and Summer had found her way to the co-op!
I took her back to the school and we got a ride home with Kathy. Summer managed to stay up until 8:30 and then went to bed with assurances that I would see her sometime early on Friday afternoon.
When Kathy went home for lunch, Summer was still asleep!! She woke up around 1:00 (the jet lag can be something fierce) and came to school just in time for my last class of the week.
Yup, Friday 5.
(Just a reminder--Friday 5 is my hardest class of the week.)
She came in and watched the lesson. Towards the end I introduced her to the kids and they were so excited that she is from Southern California (the beaches and movie star part). One little gal wanted to know if Summer has met Pamela Anderson.
Sadly, the answer is "no." : P
The funniest thing is that after they left, Summer looked at me and said, "I can see why you say what you say about this class...they're awful!" I started laughing. My reply:
"Actually, Summer, that was one of their best days so far this year!"
After school, Summer and I walked into Burnham for a look around (in the dark!) and a pub dinner. We caught up on each other's news and gossip and had a lovely time.
This morning I rode the train with her to London to see her off on the Stanstead Express. She's going to Spain for most of this week and will be back to England next weekend. We were going to stay a couple of nights in London but couldn't get a hostel or B&B. Looks like she'll stay in Burnham another couple of nights and we'll make a day trip to London. It's a shame she won't see more of London but that's just an excuse for her to come back (the way I see it!).
After seeing her off I took the train back towards Burnham, but got off in Romford with a few specific purposes:
1. See Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason at the cinema.
2. See Beyond the Sea (Kevin Spacey's lasest, a biopic on Bobby Darin) at the cinema.
3. Buy a travel backpack (found one for £30, specially designed for women's figures--in other words, the straps won't dig in certain places).
4. Stock up on stickers at the Disney store. I give them out as merits in the student's planners and they go nuts. Thirteen-year-old boys get excited about Finding Nemo stickers. Imagine that.
5. Stock up on cheapie little romance novels (the £3 Silhouette variety--nice mindless read) at WH Smith.
I met all of my objectives.
Let me just say...do yourself a gigantic favor and see Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea. He did all of the singing (and dancing!) and it is absolutely fantastic. Of course, I'm biased, being such a huge fan of the guy, but seriously, this is a good movie, and worth seeing on the big screen.
I got home at about 7:00...and dear me, it is 9:40 pm as I write this!
It has been a crazy few weeks. Not bad, not great, but just a strange mixture of both. I have been very busy, but mostly pretty happy at the school.
Update: We had a confession in the mysterious case of "Who Used the F-Word to Miss Cooper at the Vending Machine?"
Yes, Nathan confessed in a written statement to saying to me, "Give me back my money, you f---ing yob!!"
A "yob," by the way, is boy, backwards. I know, it makes no sense to me, either.
Friday was a non-student day, but incidents on Monday and Tuesday made me three-for-three.
On Monday a kid I don't even know pointed to a female student and said, "Miss, are you a lesbian with her?"
Never seen Meg speechless? Well, you missed your golden opportunity.
I marched that kid straight to the staff room (it happened before school) and dragged the first senior member of staff I saw outside and told the kid to repeat what he'd said to me. I was so mad, I couldn't think of anything to say to that kid.
Of course, we all know that I'm not a lesbian. And we all know that I would have been just as offended if the kid had asked if I'm heterosexual, or whatever. The point is, I'm not in the habit of talking about my sexual life and preferences with children!!! AND he included another student in it?? Teacher's careers can be ruined by that crap!!
Turns out the gal he pointed to when asking me if I'm a lesbian put him up to it. She told him she'd give him a handful of the candy she was eating if he'd ask me.
A lot of indignant blushing on my part later, it was made clear to me by none other than the Head Teacher himself that this was a serious offense and that I must write up a referral.
Two kids put on a three-day exclusion from school in two days. Am I on fire or what??
Finally, on Tuesday, I had to cover a year 11 Geography lesson. I confiscated a mobile phone and got called an idiot by one particularly lovely (I say that with sarcasm) 15-year-old snot.
But she lied through her teeth and refused to admit it, so all she got was detention.
It's little wonder I find myself exhausted this evening. So much excitement!
I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. Kathy and Derek made me a card and left it in my box at work. It was a lovely surprise. I told the kids all about it and how we celebrate it every year and get 3 days off from school, etc.
My dinner on Thanksgiving was a pasta bake, shared with Summer. Tomorrow, however, I'm going to cook turkey, mashed potatoes, peas, stuffing, sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce for Kathy and Derek. We've all been looking forward to our little Thanksgiving, England-Style all week.
And now, then, I shall close this update...and hope to update more often. I never update from school (well, only the one time) and the computer at home has been down much of this week. So I do have an excuse for not updating!!
Cheers,
Meg
P.S. Three weeks till I see my girl!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment