My Valentine's Day was pretty spiff, thank you very much. I
had to work of course, but since it was a spirit day, I got
to wear my black & red striped tights, my pink ME shirt, and
sticky pink lip-gloss. Yee! It's good to be me.
I'm starting to lose my easy confidence with my 10 Applied
class. It's bone-chilling how long they can spend doing absolutely
nothing. I thought that my 12 College class was inert, but my
new class makes my old class look like flaming magnesium. (Heh.
I remember only a smattering of highschool chem; just enough
to pass as clever.)
The 10 Advanced class is fine, if a little quiet (I had no
idea how much of my enjoyment in that class was built on the
comments of 4 or 5 mouthy brats.) I like that they're reading
multicultural novels rather than just their own choice of book
- for one thing, it cuts down on the amount of outright cheating.
(There's only one way for a new teacher like myself to learn what books are on the curriculum,
and that's the painful way. I had no idea they're teaching "The
Outsiders" in Grade 8 now.) I have a few phone calls to make
tomorrow, but withal they are lovely if not lively.
It's my 11 University class that is the star in my firmament
these days. As Teresa pointed out, it's not like they're particularly
brilliant, but they're unusually kind as a group - and unlike
my last experience with the course code, most of the kids are
performing at a Grade 11 University level. This in itself is
wonderful. On Friday I gave them an article by Russell Smith
on Valentine's Day, and I was heartily amused by their reactions.
I like them. And I like that I like them. Hell, some days I
wander out of that class in a flutter, like I'm 13 years old and I've seen my crush
rounding a corner up ahead. Sometimes I not only like them,
sometimes I'm in love with them. I suppose that says a lot about
how horrible last semester was.
Okay, I started off talking about V Day, but then I got distracted.
After school I met the Boy for dinner at the Bedford Ballroom,
which is the first place we ate a meal together and has the
added bonus of being terribly unromantic and thus easy to get
into on Love Day. The Boy, riding high with his successes on
the Christmas that just passed, handed me a bouquet of daisies
and whipped off his toque to show me his fab new haircut. (I've
taken to calling him "Golden Age Boy." I know, I know: we're
nerds. Deal with it.) After dinner we grabbed some frozen yoghurt,
met up with Dirk and dashed off to the Bloor to see "Punch Drunk
Love." I really liked that movie. I think what I liked best
about it was that Adam Sandler didn't spend a single second
trying to make us laugh, not even when he was tap dancing in
the drug store during his pudding-buying binge. I think that
takes incredible courage.
Yesterday we braved the frigid (-25° C) weather to rally
& march with 8000 or so other peace protesters. We were supposed
to march with the Mild Mannered Army, but a serious lack of
directions got in the way of the pre-march rendezvous, and we
ended up arriving in the square on our own. During the
initial speeches, the Boy & I did some reconnaissance in the
nearby Eaton's Centre (well, actually I was just trying to get
the feeling to come back to my feet.) While we sat in the Calvin
Klein section and waited for the actual marching to begin, I
played "Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem" in which
I used gross & clumsy stereotypes to judge passer-by. Oh well - I'm mean,
but at least I have all my toes.
Once we actually got moving, I quite enjoyed myself what with
the chanting and the singing and the cheering and the booing.
I drew peace signs in the parked car windows as we marched by,
and ate almonds instead of the tempting chocolate. We marched
for 2 hours, but we decided to turn tail during the concluding
speakers. It was just too cold. The Boy decided to hook up
with Exodus and I looked forward to getting home and doing laundry.
I was at the subway station closest to our house when I realized
that I didn't have house keys.
Ooops. Good thing the Boy had us both buy day passes. I was
able to leap back on the subway and travel to Exodus' neighbourhood.
The problem was that I didn't know Exodus' number - and there
are at least a dozen identical entries in the Toronto phone
book. After 5 minutes of hard thinking, I decided to call Exodus'
roommate Burke at the bar where he works. At least I knew the
name of the bar. Unfortunately, Burke wasn't there. And when
I did manage to find him, he let me know that the Boy had run
off to a matinee almost as soon as the two of us had parted
ways. In other words, I was fucked. Well, not completely fucked,
because I had my wallet and if it really came down to it, I
could've booked a hotel room. But I didn't think of that at
the time. I just thought, "fucked," over and over.
Burke suggested that I come over and hide out in the warm bar
until the boys showed up for their weekly dose of hockey. I
was pretty tired of the wind chill at that point, and I have
a feeling that I would've hung out in Hell, let alone a bar
called "The Devil's Advocate." Anyway, to make a long story
short, I spent my Saturday in a bar, drinking pot after pot
of tea and devouring Chris Moore's new/old book, Lamb.
I was lucky in that it was a kinghell of a book, good enough
to distract me from the fact that I hadn't been properly warm
since 10 a.m. and good enough to get me into a conversation
with a stranger than encompassed West Coast living, jail, Salman
Rushdie, NaNoWriMo and (my forte) the teaching of highschool
English. Didn't get his name. Isn't that always the way?
Today we went to church and prepared for the Boy's immanent
departure. I also baked two cakes, which are for the staff lunch
tomorrow. Did I get any work done? Eh. Have I enjoyed myself
this weekend? Two thumbs up.
