Keeping track

So I read in the L-town paper while I was around last week that the senior class has two National Merit semifinalists (it's too early in the year for finalists). My reaction was, wait a minute. Their class has probably 200 more people in it than ours did, and we had five--shouldn't they have more than two, statistically speaking? That got me thinking about my four peers:

-One I had seen three days before
-I had seen another's sister-in-law that day
-One lives in the same town as me now, and I've seen her roommate occasionally in the last few months?
-And the other, with whom I was actually friends, I haven't seen or had any weird connection with, but his brother got married the following day, if that counts at all.

I just thought it was kinda weird that I actually had present-day connections with those people, still. haha. I mean, I had classes with them here and there in high school, of course, but I was only really friends with the one.

And in other news, I think Jonesie made out with me last night. What?

livin' la vida loca

Started in the new building this week. (We moved our entire autism program down the street.) Oh my gah, things are crazy. It's a lot easier to spread staff really thin in the larger environment. Like, this afternoon, for example...there are five of us who work with our eight kids. One person had run back to the old building for an errand. One person was on one-on-one potty duty with a student (we're trying to get him potty-trained; he's sitting on the potty ALL DAY). One person was setting up snack. That left two of us with the kids playing with shaving cream/cleaning that up/taking everyone potty before snack. So I took two kids and got them cleaned up and pottied and went to drop them off at snack, but the person wasn't finished setting it up yet, so I had to stay with them. Which left one person alone with four kids and a big shaving cream mess. eek! (And this craziness was with one child taking a nap!)

I'm so excited for my teaching position. I know this is what I want to do. My job is more important to me now than getting certified is...which screws me over if I ever want to work anywhere else, but I don't see what else I can do. This job is everything I never knew I always wanted. heh.

Had a really great week in L-town last week. Probably my last chance to just chill there for quite some time, what with training and then, well, teaching. Jonesie (my darling rat) loves my parents, which is hilar, between my dad being a rat-murderer and my mom not liking animals. I subbed some and was that much more grateful for my real job (middle-schoolers are annoying). I chilled with B, and I got to go to the Fall Festival parade for the first time in...six years? Spent some time with my brother (hadn't seen him since June!), and briefly saw my Carly (see previous post lol). Saw a couple preciously adorable baby cousins*--who love me!--and a few miscellaneous extended family members.

Read Love in the Time of Cholera. I found it extremely disappointing, for as much as I love One Hundred Years of Solitude. Oh well. Next (not counting keeping up with my New Yorkers) I'm reading My Life in Pictures by Temple Grandin, who has autism. sweet.

*One example of their supreme cute-itude: while I was praising Rachel, who's three and a half and was sitting across the room, for putting shapes in the shape sorter ("good job, Rachel!"), her baby sister Abigail, eighteen months, who was climbing on me, put her hands on her hips, stuck out her lip, and scolded me, "Ah-bi-gail" (thinking I'd called her her sister's name). LMAO

Hugging

I'm not really a touchy-feely person. I've broken my mom's heart continuously for probably about twenty years because I'm just...not. I don't remember ever kissing my parents or brother (obviously I would have as a small child). Hugs, only when decorum demands. I mean, I don't have a problem with hugs...I just don't have a huge draw to them, either. My two best L-town friends have similar inclinations. We hug if we need to. Not gratuitously. Hahaha. Now, I AM more touchy-feely with my Springfazzle friends, and also with anyone when I'm imbibing, but overall, yeah, no. And I don't do the bear hug thing, or hold on too tight.

But sometimes...every once in a while, I will admit, an embrace is the way to communicate. When you've been dying to see someone, and you don't know when you'll see him or her again, and you just need to soak up as much as that person as possible. At the point when words are useless--all you need is that person, and hopefully, all he or she needs is you. And you squeeze so tight that you convince yourself that you're still connected, that he or she won't forget about you, that your memory of him or her cannot fade.

I saw my Carly today. For the first time since, I don't know, maybe in passing some Sunday in the spring? It'd been so long. I babbled a little, but I wish I hadn't. I could've hugged her all morning.

that kind of September

try to remember that kind of September
when life was slow and oh so mellow

Things aren't yet crazy at work like I had anticipated. Haven't started working on the move yet, haven't started training yet. Which is to say, when I get home at 3:30 or so, I am bored. Not events- and activities-wise, I enjoy myself, but intellectually. I know, how many years did I spend griping about writing papers and such...but I hardly know what to do with myself without that kind of structure.

Need to contact Drury and help persuade them to open a severe special ed Master's. Kerri says they're thinking about it!! Not that I can afford any more Drury education...but I need somethin'.

Just finished rereading Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio. I first read it when I was fifteen. On the last page, 15-year-old Marie had drawn an arrow to some text with the note, "this is where I started bawling." 22-year-old Marie had not been moved in the slightest. hahaha. ch-ch-changes...

I've only got two days of school this week. Day off tomorrow, and then MANDT training (how to hold down a violent child so neither of you gets hurt) Thursday-Friday. I'll miss my little guys!!!!