A P.S. from Bernard

About five minutes after I finished my last post, Bernard texted me to say, "I just finished reading the first part of Nickel and Dimed and its off the hook! oh to put it in eglish terms iam relishing the book." Points for an attempt at aiming for audience and using better vocab, but I have a feeling I won't be having many grammar arguments with Bernard the way I did with Gabe...

School's Out

I had an amazing last week of school, partly because I'm finally letting go of a lot of the anxiety I was feeling about my mom's latest mid-life crisis antics. Tuesday, the day before our last day on Wednesday, I forced myself to be a good sport and joined some friends from work for a drink at a sports bar, pretending to care about the Lakers' defeat by the Celtics. Although I was completely uninterested in the game, it put me in a good mood to have social interaction. But it only got better when Gabe called me from the road to tell me songs on his iPod (Rufus Wainwright, Decemberists, and Pedro the Lion) got him thinking about me and prompted him to call. I taught Gabe during my first year of teaching in D.C. He was a sophomore in my English class and we often argued about punctuation and organization, but I treasured his cynicism and was delighted to find him in my class again as a senior, in my Radiohead to Dylan music lyrics class. I can't believe that he's entering his senior year at U Michigan, spending the summer as an intern for a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio.

Needless to say, the conversation prompted me to remind my fabulous students of this year that they must do the same (call me five..and then ten...and then twenty, etc. years down the line) as I handed the last of them a copy of the book I made of their writings. I have become so addicted to the kids that I was eager to take some of my speech students up on throwing a party around a bonfire on the beach the following Monday, where they made fun of me for being white and having a crush on Obama (I got them back when I pulled out my obnoxious self-dubbed "being ethnically-sensitive" plates, which had big, silly Mexican sombreros on them).

I joked about hiring them to help me move into my house next Tuesday, but they rescinded the offer when I got mad at them for swimming in the ocean three times after I joined the lifeguard in demanding they get out due to unsafe swimming conditions.

"We'll get out, but it looks like you better hit Home Depot on Tuesday, Ms. G."

"What are you talking about? You ARE my Home Depot crew."

"Eeeeeee!"

After I finished packing away my classroom for the summer on Friday, I texted three of my speech students while waiting in line to watch the Jay Leno show inside the NBC studio in L.A., telling them to look out for me that evening. Bernard replied by first texting, "Is it on cable, cuz we ain't got none," to which I indignantly asked him who his English teacher was (gulp-- me, next year, and in AP, no less) and then he later texted me to tell me to look for him, actually IN the show, on "Late Night Oprah."

I will be young forever with their help. Young, and happy, and full of laughter. I think I've found my salvation...

Jose Raises Us One: Lie Your Part Deux

Best Sense of Humor about Self Ever: Jose decided to laugh with us, rather than feel laughed AT, and he made an artistic homage with a new assignment, this time for our identification, illustration, and analysis of literary elements in Sandra Cisneros' House on Mango Street. The analysis isn't too deep, but here it is in its full ungrammatical glory (only one of the errors being intentional).

Happy Birthday to Me

No words needed.

Best Birthday Ever

It's not until tomorrow, but the run-up to the day marking the beginning of my last year before I exit the twenties has been everything I could wish for:

--Friday I paid my deposit for renting a house near beautiful historic Orange, just minutes from work and within walking distance of "the Circle" that is full of fun bars, restaurants, and antique stores, at a price that will leave plenty of room to save for a historic home there (goal: 2010, when my tenure is secured and the district is predicting our state will be in the clear from its current financial mess). I drove from school to pay the deposit and was back at our faculty Happy Hour within twenty minutes, more than half the time it usually takes to commute home...ONE-WAY.

--Today Mr. Rankin pulled me aside to tell me I had my job back and I came home to find confirmation in the mail

--But best present of all: it looks like Hillary Clinton is preparing to resign the race tomorrow, on the actual birthday itself, after the last two states finish their primaries, confirming Obama's clean and clear win...