from the mouths of little children...

Yeah, I'm not that good about doing regular updates. Part of it is that my life just doesn't seem that exciting to me right now, and also, moving to Ann Arbor has been more of an adjustment than I realized it would be (it seems like the last six months or so have been nothing but major adjustments...this is wearying). I like my job a lot, but moving to a city where I don't know a lot of people (however, *wave* to Cary!) and I won't be here long enough to build long-term friendships has been challenging. But I have Ukrainian conversation time with Svitlana, think I may have found a church (two, actually) for the summer, and generally run up my phone bill. So I'm hanging in there.

And as I said, I really enjoy my job. The kids say the funniest things. Kay, one of my 4-year-olds, has a very stubborn streak to her...as well as a misunderstanding of reflexive pronouns. Last week, we were learning about feelings, and she said, "I angry." "Why are you angry?" I asked. "I angry because Daddy help me on monkey bars and I do it yourself!!!" She's very big on the phrase "I do it yourself."

Also from Ryan in the same class: "Who that?" (looking at the mailbox for a child who hadn't yet joined the class). "That's Mia," I said. "She's going to be the new girl." "Why we need new girl?" he asked.

My kids really are what keep me going some days. No matter how tired or drained or lonely I get, teaching them cheers me up!

oops, getting behind on posting

Oh, wow...it's been a week already since my last post! Let's see...what is there of note to mention?

* As of tonight, I officially have my apartment furnished, as Nikki and I hauled the futon upstairs and the couch downstairs. Forget "Two Men and a Truck"--two petite females proved that they're tougher than they look! I now hope to sort of get my living room put together and decorated. My chairs are fascinating and varied--a wooden folding chair, a very nice computer chair, a wooden stool, and a lopsided wicker chair I rescued off of the sidewalk this past weekend.

* I have a library card for the Ann Arbor Library. Besides books and movies, apparently you can check out art prints for a month or two. Maybe I should look into that for decorating.

* Reina, the little girl who just screamed and screamed the first few times in class, is fine now. Today she came in smiling, said "Hello," waved to her mom and said, "Bye-bye," and settled down to her art project. Her mom said that she gets all excited about coming to class. Yay!

* UMBC sent me a letter this week to tell me that I was accepted to the Bilingual Ed/ESOL MA program. I emailed them back in March to say I was withdrawing my application, but apparently some wires got crossed there. However, they apparently weren't going to give me any funding other than loans, so I think I'm much better off at MSU.

* After some emailing around, I have a Ukrainian conversation partner/tutor for the summer! Her name is Svitlana, and she's a student at Eastern Michigan who was originally from Ternopilska Oblast (not far from Celeste, actually). We met for the first time last night, and it was so much fun to be speaking Ukrainian again. With a job transcribing videos of Ukrainian classrooms this fall, I wanted to keep up with my language skills, so this seemed like a great opportunity.

shrug your shoulders and laugh...it beats the alternatives!

"Today was...interesting," I said to my mom on the phone tonight.

"Someone threw up?" she asked.

"Among other things," I answered. Apparently when you've worked in schools as long as she has, you just understand this stuff inherently.

So yes, I had a child throw up in class today (all over her Mother's Day card, which while it was unfortunate for the card, did make clean-up easier, as throwing away the card removed most of the mess). This was the same class where kids who had had indoor recess today at school still couldn't go outside due to rain so I had lots of antsy little boys, the electricity went off for a few seconds, and when it came back on, it set off the security alarm for the building, which the police had to come reset.

And did I mention that there was a parent in class today who had been concerned that her daughter was developmentally delayed and too young for the class and wanted to come observe? Of all the days to come... Fortunately, she seemed to be understanding about the chaos and see that in fact, her daughter was just fine. (She left right after the policeman...I don't know if her curiousity was satisfied or if she just couldn't take it anymore.)

Never a dull moment with this job.

the toughest job you'll ever love (no, not preschool)

I've taken to going for a walk most evenings, now that I've moved to Ann Arbor, a combination of wanting to get in better shape and become more familiar with the city. It's a beautiful place to be, especially in the spring. I walked for about 40 minutes tonight (partly because I wasn't quite sure where I was in relation to other things, as I kept finding intersections where both streets were labeled "South Something-or-other."

U of M's campus is lovely, especially the older buildings, many of which are Gothic in style. It reminds me a bit of my (quite possibly erroneous) conception of Oxford as an undergraduate fond of the works of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis, although I'm under the impression that Oxford has less "green space".

As I was walking by the Michigan Union tonight, I happened to notice a tall, thin, rectangular monument in the corner of a flower bed. Going over to read it, I found out that it commemorated the speech that John F. Kennedy made on the steps of the Michigan Union in 1960, campaigning for President, where he first mentioned the idea for the Peace Corps.

How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.

be not dismayed, whate'er betide--God will take care of you

I feel richly blessed with furniture tonight (and exhausted from moving it). The guy in the apartment above me moved out today, and he told me that I could have any of the furniture he left behind. So I have a couch (still up there, until I dispose of the futon I had), a table, a coffee table, a TV with DVD player built in, a stool, a computer desk chair, and a really, really nice mattress and box springs. Nikki, the girl across the hall, helped me move it all downstairs.

So, for having picked a place more or less at random off of Craigslist, this apartment has worked out to be a really good deal. Not overly expensive, good neighborhood, and now, lots of furniture for free.

Teaching...it's a lot of work, but I'm enjoying it. I have two classes of 2 to 3 1/2-year-olds, who come with a parent, one class of 3 1/2 to 5-year-olds, and one class of 4 1/2 to 6-year-olds. I'm sure I'll have lots of good teaching stories this summer, but tonight I'm too tired for them. As I said to Mom on the phone, I didn't go for a walk tonight, but I think I still got my exercise in.

home sweet apartment

I think the last post should have ended, "And when my life gets sort of settled, I'll try and start blogging again more regularly." As it turned out, I spent close to a week and a half (minus the weekend) living in a motel before moving into my apartment for the summer on Wednesday. Wednesday was also my first actual teaching day, with four classes; as well, I had horrible allergies. I basically managed to get the bed made and call Mom and Tif before falling asleep.

My apartment is great. It's part of a huge old brick house that's been turned into a bunch of apartments, largely populated by grad and law students. It's a little shabby in a good sort of way, with wood floors and detail around the doorways. The apartment itself is pretty small. It's got the same amount of rooms as my place in Ukraine--living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, but the rooms are smaller. But it's big enough for me (although sorely lacking in counter space in the kitchen). The girl I'm subletting from left me her furniture (which I can keep after I move out), and I'm inheiriting several other items from the guy upstairs who's moving out, so it should be pretty cozy once I get things organized.

This was originally going to be a much longer post including a section on teaching, but since both Tif and Melissa called me during the composition, I think it's time to close for now.