Everybody's Talking

Actually, everybody wasn't talking. They were totally quiet when I walked into the classroom this morning. I took the paper the instructor handed me and sat down by Nicole. She started asking me about registering for the test, which I forgot to do because my apartment was so messy and I had cleaned instead. This got us talking about what she and her husband had done the night before. . . when suddenly the instructor walked over and got upset with us for being off task. Apparently we were supposed to be reading this paper and looking for key points. Ew, rude. Except I do that to my students five times a day, everyday. So there you have it.

If I Fell

Today I fell when getting into the shower and seriously injured my pinky. I don't know if its broken or just jammed, but it HURTS and is very swollen and immobile. Then I sat down to go the bathroom and looked at my knees. On the left knee is a bruise and scrape from when a stack of chairs fell on me last Sunday. On my right knee is the scar from last year when I fell and sliced my right leg with my left stiletto heel. I'm now starting to feel the bruise on my right shin from the same shower incident and the mysterious slice on my index finger in finally almost healed. I'd like to say this is unusual, but is so usual.

Help!

So today I left school a little later than usual. Usually I leave at 3:00. School ends at 2:25 and by 3 the parking lots have cleared and I can just drive out. So when I left at 3:10 I didn't even think about the traffic. I cleared the fresh snow off my car and got in. When I got turned around, facing the exit, I noticed there was a very long line of cars waiting to get out. I guess the falling snow on the already icy pavement was causing this process to take longer than usual. It was about a 15 minute wait, but soon I was almost to the front of the line. There were only two cars in front of me and I started to realize that we weren't moving as fast as the line of cars next to us turning left. I saw the wheels of the truck at the front of the line spinning and spinning and a little blonde girl at the wheel. "Oh no," I thought. "She's stuck." The drive way out of our school parking lot is at an incline, which makes the slippery snow difficult to deal with. I thought to myself that I guess I would just have to wait until all the left turn cars were gone so I could go around her. Suddenly I saw two boys hop out of the car behind me and a girl jump out of the car in front of me and another student appeared out of somewhere I didn't even see. The blonde in the truck, who I now saw was my student Holly, got out of the truck and one of the boys jumped in. The rest of the kids, including Holly, got behind the truck and began to push. Soon the truck began to move and they turned out of the lot and pulled over to the side of the road to switch drivers. The kids gave me a thumbs up as I applauded them from inside my nice warm car. It wasn't five seconds later that I found myself stuck in the same hole as Holly! The kids hadn't gone too far and they kindly rallied again and pushed me out. I waved a thanks and drove off amidst cheers and applause from kids every where. I got a little emotional as I thought about the selflessness of these kids, so willing to get out in the snow in the cold (22 degrees!) and not even dressed for pushing cars out of snow banks (one boy was dressed in a 3-piece suit, a girl dressed in a red wool coat and nice boots) and the kindness and joy on their faces as they did what they thought any good Bingham High student would do: help.

The Beat Goes On

Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain.
And life keeps going.
School starts tomorrow and in two weeks we start a new semester.
And I have so much work I feel terribly overwhelmed.
But it doesn't matter much because time will continue and soon it will be my summer break.
And then soon summer will be over.
And school will start again.
And the beat goes on.