november 10, 2001. Saturday lunches are my favourite time of the week now: I have a whole week until SMILE & I'm 2 days away from Buffy. I'm not doing badly in SMILE - in fact we're doing extremely well with the swimming & cognitive activities. But I still haven't lost the vague apprehension that one day I will lose her interest & be unable to regain it. Also, I'm starting to run out of ideas. And what else is new... Busy busy day, yet strangely unsatisfying. I'm a little sick right now; I'd just finished dinner when my stomach started to revolt, thus pretty much putting paid to any other plans I might have for the evening. I'm hoping that the problem was dinner. I'd hate to think that I'm getting a stomach bug the week before practicum. Heaven knows that my interactions with a grade 7 class will not be improved by a drop in energy levels. (Oh. The Boy just brought me a beautiful steaming mug of green tea. I am grateful beyond words.) Other than a vague concern about illness, I'm not too worried about this go-round, which is a pleasant change from last year. It's perfectly understandable, of course: last year's field experience was the big cavalry charge, the do-or-die moment that would determine once and for all if I belonged in front of a bunch of little ones. Now that it's behind me, all I have are a small fraction of the usual butterflies that attend a plunge into the complete unknown. How scary can a grade 7 class be? Why yes, I suppose I am whistling in the dark. How kind of you to notice. This afternoon we trundled down the hill to see a musical version of Animal Farm. (Warning: people in the first 5 rows WILL become Socialists.) And I know what you're thinking, if you're anything like me. You're picturing some god-awful pastiche of crap under the new name "Animal Farm!" (because musicals always have exclamation points after the title, of course they do). And maybe you're giggling a bit. We would never have crossed the threshold of that particular experience if we hadn't learned that one of the Boy's Sunday School pupils was in the orchestra, but cross we did. And you know? It was an excellent little play. I think I've been unconsciously waiting a good part of my life to hear "four legs good! two legs bad!" in song form. Everyone just gave & gave & gave until you were completely immersed in the action. By the end I really wanted to get up & throttle those damn pigs. I guess that's what happens when you sit in the front row. this time 4 years ago: so much for creative nudity