Guess it's been awhile

Hi there, again. :)

First, I wanted to share some music that has totally made my week: Susie Suh. Her voice sounds like a blend of my girl Haley Bonar, Joni Mitchell, and Fiona Apple. Go check her out!

Next, we had a teacher-blogger event on Friday, in Brooklyn. It was a lot of fun. Saw some old teacher friends, and met a few new ones. Sadly, a few did not show up. What happened to you guys? Hope to come to the next one! We hung out at the bar for a couple hours, and then went next door to the tiny but excellent Mexican restaurant. We did a good job of not only talking about teaching, I think. There was some good travel talk (yay for fellow solo travelers!), and some culture/television stuff, as well as the standard contract/city education politics hot topics. Very good times!

On Saturday, we didn't have school--hurrah!! I got to sleep in, watch tv, take naps, read, and do nothing. Do you watch Globe Trekker? I don't catch it very often, but I love it. Last weekend, the American girl (there's also a British guy and a British girl) was in Sydney. She went to a music show at the Opera House, and it was this weird interactive thing with strange instruments and stranger people playing them. She whispered, "It's not what you'd call...pleasant music. It's kind of annoying, actually. But maybe it's supposed to be!" That cracked me up. Yesterday, the British guy was going around Polynesia, including Tahiti and Bora Bora and a few other islands that I can't remember. Among other things, he got a traditional tattoo, helped harvest black pearls, and fed manta rays in clear turquoise water. God, it was gorgeous!

In the evening, my friend N and I went to her cousin's house for a girl's night hangout. We ate some, talked about careers and weddings, and played games. We hooked more folks on Taboo, and then we played some Cranium. After the excitement of Taboo, though, Cranium was all quiet and they didn't like it very much. Sad! But it was a lot of fun, and it's always nice to meet new people. One girl, the one who's getting married next month, is thinking about leaving her current job and going back to school for teaching. So my friend and I told her about it. I am bad about that; I tend to dramatize the negative aspects of the things I've done and I fear that I discourage interest in it.

Teaching, though...whew, there's a lot of things about the reality that most people don't know. So it's kind of a favor to prospective teachers to tell them, Don't have any romantic ideals about teaching. It's really busy and very stressful.

I still haven't decided if I "like" teaching. Is that strange? Even last year, I couldn't say that I hated it OR liked it. And last year was an awful year. This year is a billion times better, but I can't bring myself to proclaim, I love my job! I know that I don't hate it. I'm just kind of ambivalent about it. It's what I do. I pride myself on doing a good job, or trying my best, or pushing through the bad times. That seems a little more important, doesn't it?

It's already Sunday morning.

Less than two weeks until Prague!