THAT'S THE WAY WE GET BY

It's been quite the different experience this year with my new class. They have so much energy, I'm not sure how to contain it or redirect it. I've resorted to making an easy dinner, watching an episode of True Blood, and getting to bed early every week day. Apologies for the blogging absence, these students have got me so tired!

I DREAMED I SAW THE SILVER SPACESHIPS FLYING

Do you ever do this? Go into a store and try something on and hate it, but then go back a couple weeks later to try on the same thing and then love it? Exactly what I did with this silver skirt. Bit of a madwoman-shopping-style. I also do this - decide I'd like to take blog photos right before I go to bed, so I needed to wear the hat in order to hide my hideous glasses. Bit of a absent-minded-blogging-style.
And, I'm teaching a big travel unit in my class right now, so it felt right to paint a paper airplane in flight on my nails...

Happy Monday!

Skirt: Club Monaco, Shirt: Gap, Shoes: Sam Edelman, Bag: American Eagle, Hat: from Thailand

A ROCKING HORSE OF TIME

These days have been a bit of a balancing act of time, when I can't really make up my mind what should take importance. Prepping for lessons, writing Master's papers, and still trying to figure out how to best decorate my classroom... Thank goodness for sunny weather that allows you, for a brief moment, to be removed from unnecessarily stressful situations.

FOLLOWING THE NEON LIGHTS

Slowly I am getting back into the flow of things at school. Setting up routines, planning the weekly schedule, dealing with behaviours... That's the hardest part. Meeting new kids and learning who they are. The classroom is still way too bare for my liking, which doesn't really show who I am to them. But since we aren't allowed to put anything up on the walls, I had to get crafty and sneaky and string things up in the window blinds...

I AM MYSELF, LIKE YOU SOMEHOW

I don't think kids realize that the teacher is just as nervous for the first day of school as the students are. I remember last year worried about how to make that great first impression, but this year was a combination of two kinds of fears; I worried about meeting my new students for the first time, and I worried about losing my students from before. At my school, the first morning we get our old kids back. Then we wait as school helpers come around to each class and pick up small groups of kids to take them to their new classes. I watched as bit by bit my class I so dearly loved was being split apart. I was heartbroken. When all my kids had left, I sat in my teacher chair, traumatized. And then boom, in came in my new class. I felt so unprepared. How could I learn to love another class after this devastating loss of my previous one?
But after three days with my new students, I know that I will love this class as well. I will inevitably attach myself to them like I am their mother, their mentor, their protector. I will come to call them 'my kids' like I truly believe it. And I will have to part with them in ten months, heartbroken all over again. Nervous for the first day of school? You have no idea.

I DON'T CARE WHERE JUST FAR

Last weekend my bf and I made a trip by boat to a remote part of Galiano Island that boasts a campsite and beach completely isolated from any town or camper traffic. At times it felt like we had the shoreline all to ourselves. Total bliss spending days in the hot sun and getting to bed at 9pm (it gets seriously pitch black when the sun goes down). The long weekend almost a perfect getaway except for our return boat-ride home not being able to pick us up Monday due to rocky waters, so we spent a good four hours walking the deserted road from where our hidden campsite lay all the way to the other end of the island to catch a ferry, with a few hitch-hiking car-rides to save us some time. But even though my poor feet suffered numerous sandal blisters, I'd do it all over again; alone time with someone you love is definitely necessary.