STAND UP! - Status update

OK I never understood "prom-posals" until now, at the ripe old age of 36. Groups of students are taking each of us teachers out on Sunday to explore Ningbo. Each group of kids worked hard on their invitations and by lunch, almost everyone had an invite...but me. I sat at my lunch table, cringing under the visible pity of two other American teachers and one Chinese teacher. I even got the, "Oh... you'll get one... I'm sure." It smarted, I tell ya!

 After lunch we have a brief  25-minute period where our advisory kids do either free talk or silent sustained reading and today was a reading day for me. About 5 minutes before the end of class, one kid yelled, "Stand up!" and everyone in the room stood and asked, together, "Will you go on our trip?"

I felt like Miss Damn America. Even better? Everyone else knows where they're going but mine is a surprise!

Status Update - Scavenger Hunt

If someone had sent me on a scavenger hunt yesterday with only three items
(an old lady, a rain poncho, and a Vespa), I'd have completed it in one fell swoop, 
within 25 seconds of arriving in Shanghai. 

Status Update - Kites

Sandy:  I have a policy of not wishing my life away, but I do sometimes wonder what my life would look like without anxiety. 

DS: Wow, I can hear the voice-over. And the music is a Shawn Colvin song with the vocal track erased.

Sandy: Damn, dude. I'm picturing a line drawing of myself, frowning, wanting to join some people flying kites, but unsure how. You're really bringing me down.

Sandy: (Which sounds like a commercial for Xanax featuring gentle animation. Yuck.)

SN: You steal a kite from a bunch of kids....

Sandy: "My anxiety is gone, but I'm a real dick now!"   (Not said, but implied.)

Status Update - Red Alert

S: I have to fart and I'm sitting on a hard plastic seat. RED ALERT.

JS: Don't trust a fart!!!!

S: I'm clenching!

LT: You can announce it for all of FB, but not actually let it happen? You are a mystery.

EB: I say Let 'er rip.

TO: Easy girl...just don't shit your pants!

JM: Go to the bathroom? Just brainstorming here

S: I couldn't because we were in this classroom watching a movie and all the desks are crammed together and it was a huge ordeal. I held it together though, guys!

GC: By held "it" together, you obviously mean your buttocks.

Status Update - Chin Hair

One of life's greatest joys is tweezing a tenacious chin hair. I almost miss the one I had in my mid-20s, just for the joy of tracking it down and yanking it out.

Status Update - Garden Ridge

I have not been to Garden Ridge in 5 years. In that time it has gone from an overwhelming emporium of craft supplies and home decor to a steaming pile of Hoosierville. 

 

 

Sonnet #2

Obsession captures my heart in a vise.
Love was never supposed to be like this.
All my passions, one look would not suffice.
I'm supposed to be enraptured by bliss.
But bliss has come and marked the beginning
Of my journey into a hellish place.
All your love, your laughing smile so winning
Has sucked all the happiness from my space.
Give me back the world that once was my own.
Let me return to the way my life was.
Solace and solitude are all I've known.
Oh God, just leave me alone, because
I cannot love for fear of seeing hell.
If you love me, my soul I'll surely sell.