I've been having wicked-bad allergic reactions to my house lately. The Boy thinks that it's because Ceilidh has been licking her cone a lot and increasing the dander in the air. All I know is that my time at home is alternately miserable and barely okay. I just passed through a miserable block; it made me want to crawl into bed and it's only 7:50. Of course, a late night plus SMILE might have something to do with the fact that I feel run over.
* * *
Last night was the graduation dinner on the Good Ship Education (congratulation dinner? graduating class dinner? None of those look right. I dunno, I've never been to one before.) It was, with some caveats, a fairly excellent time. I enjoyed walking around in my New Year's Princess getup (complete with tiara!) and I enjoyed seeing people try to find the words to express their appreciation of the Boy in a 3-piece suit. The dinner was lovely, although it didn't need to be that great to surpass my expectations: as the Boy pointed out, our only other script for eating in a hall is the wedding script...so really, any dinner that didn't involve one or another of my "wacky" relatives was a-ok. I ended up sitting near the girl who had my last year's placement the year before that, and she had utterly hated my host teacher. I could not sympathize as I had thoroughly enjoyed my time with him. Oh well.
There was a slide show (mostly pictures of the same dozen people holding alcoholic beverages) and I got to meet a bunch of wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends and socialize with my profs while holding a drink. They were very sweet to me; all of them said nice things about the black-and-white striped stockings and my Equity professor told me that I should wear the tiara every day. *Glow*
(Apparently I make a good impression in a tiara; I got an email today: "my wife was impressed with you last night. It is very seldom in life that you meet REAL people and you surely are one of those. [She] described it best when she said being around you was like inhaling a huge breath of fresh air." Wow. I am so flattered.)
The speeches were also very good. The woman who is tutoring me in lesson planning spoke on behalf of the Elementary class, and my opinion of her jumped 5 or 6 notches when the first quote out of her mouth was by G.K. Chesterton ("anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.") I clapped & cheered and briefly broke the listening silence, for I couldn't restrain myself and I knew that Palaver would have wanted it this way.
In private conversation, this lovely lady also mentioned that she has been instructed to "support" me in the class room next moth. I choose to interpret this as a good sign, like they're airlifting in a defender for me...because surely they don't think that I need that much support in the classroom. If they think I need a supervisor with me to just to teach they should stop wasting time and flunk my ass, because obviously I need something more than 5 weeks to learn it all.
Sigh. I hate this fucking Kafkaesque dance. I live for April 22 - the date I get to run from the classroom in a swirl of unmarked papers, à la Miss Hoover when she hears about the teacher's strike. Or maybe - dare to dream! - I can give vent to my feelings and shout something similar to "up yours, Krabapple!" to SuperTeacher as I howl out of there. Neither of those things are going to ever happen - but hell, a girl can dream.
* * *
The only thing in the speeches that I minded was the fact that my name wasn't included in the joke list of "Teacher's Most Likely To..." To remedy this grave situation, I have provided a list of four alternatives:
- Teacher Most Likely to Talk More than the Students
- Teacher Most Likely to Wear PVC, a Corset and/or a Tiara to the Staff Christmas Party
- Teacher Most Likely to Give Bonus Marks for a Reference to G.K. Chesterton/Tom Waits.
- Teacher Most Likely to Slip in a Reference to the Fetish S/M Club She Went to That One Time
* * *
"Shut your joke hole."
The Boy had an excellent time as per usual. He is much loved on the Good Ship, a fact that he forgets with alarming regularity. He had me laughing hysterically near the beginning of the dinner when his 'inner entertainer' went into hyper drive and he became loud and frenetic. Other than that, he was excellent...except when it came to the food.
"Put your plate down."
"I just want to trade plates with you."
"I'm not trading plates; we're at a semi-formal dinner."
"But how am I supposed to eat your tomatoes?"
"You're not."
* * *
New news from the 'Peg - if we don't move in this summer, my dad has found a buyer that wants to tear the place down in June. I find this upsetting, although I don't know why I should care - I've never even visited the place for Christ's sake. It's only been in the family since July; I was going to swing by this August. And yet, the idea that I might never see it in the flesh gives me the heebs for some reason.
(I'm nuts. I should just accept that by now.)
* * *
3 years ago today: loving myself in all my deviance
