In with the New?

When I greeted this new year with the hope of positive changes, I didn’t mean I wanted to get rid of all the stuff I liked. Jeez. I miss my baby and her parents, and my familiar house and toys. I never see my friends when I’m at home, but I miss knowing I can. I miss having bits of free time.

On the bright side, I’m working at what I wanted to be working at. I must say, though, that the situation is more challenging than I’d have asked, in that I’m teaching a full-time load of classes and all four classes are new, so (for those who don’t know teaching) there’s a huge additional burden. The classroom time is hardest, but only a percentage of the total job.

Today was the first day of my first classes. I have a total of fifty students whose names (Korean and Japanese, mostly) I’ll never be able to say. Just call me Brad Pitt, suggested one after a particularly brutal mangling of his name.

My favorite quotation from today was from a young Korean man talking about the challenges of learning English: Speaking is hardest because it’s nervous and not used to me. Living and working in Davis is nervous and not used to me, too. I am so homesick, and I don’t even know why.

Ember came to see me yesterday, along with her parental caretakers. Molly & Bates came over too. I do like the mother hen feeling: the matriarch with her brood. Among the things that Eleni brought from my house (where she and Jason still reside) was something just received from SIT: paper proof of my successful endurance of academic trials. I officially have a master of arts in teaching. I’ll sell it for $45,000.

Across the street from my apartment is where rural Davis begins (and where Verizon’s cellphone service ends): just fields and horses and, this morning, what looked like acres of snow but in fact was heavy ice. My car was a dark blue crystal.

Here are some pix from January 5, the day after moving day when I said goodbye to my Amtrak-riding family. The sorrow literally made it hard to breathe. As they choo-choo’d away, Eleni held little E. Virginia up to the scratched, darkened window, so all I could see was my little pink and black girl surrounded by smoky grey.

Why on earth am I writing when I have such a huge amount of work. It’s the kind of stuff you can’t get away with faking. In the classroom I have to know what’s happening every second, and keep stuff rolling, and figure out how to change direction when things stall or worse. Goodnight, and good luck.