week 2

Well, here it is week two with the kids and we are in our third day of full school days.

It is at this lovely time that two things have happened. The first is that The Surliest Group of Road Pavers ever have decided that this is the only week they can pave the long country road out to our school, so we get to sit in enormous long lines of parents and their kids trying to get to school. Today I saw kids running up in line to cars that were closer, and I even saw a mom letting her child pee on the side of the road. We were waiting so long, and were so heartbreakingly close to the school (literally a stone's throw away) that I thought all of us were going to pull that classic video moment (a la R.E.M) where we all just get out of our cars and start walking.

As it happened, when the line of cars finally started moving, the two construction Boss Men were deep in some kind of argument, so many people came into the school talking about the numerous and colorful explitives our kids were hearing as they slowly rode past. Emma and I were listening to "of Montreal" so didn't hear the fight but couldn't miss the cat calls coming from the workers as we and other moms and kids drove by in the line. Yay.

The second fabulous thing to happen is that the air conditioning in the school is broken. It's like 100 degrees this week and so all of us are cooking like Grandma's brisket in my room, waiting to die as we plow through the finer points of how to write reports on sea creatures. Last night, because of the heat throughout the day, I got in bed and my feet were swollen to what felt like twice their normal size, which is really charming.

Through all of this though, I get more excited about my students. They are probably the sweetest bunch of kids I've ever worked with, and once they pull their heads out of the summer haze, I think they are going to do some serious learning this year.