Lifehack: if you are having trouble waking up first thing in the morning, might I suggest a large cockroach in the middle of your room? Gets that blood pumping. To further add to the drama, rendering coffee obsolete, roachie could disappear (on legs so fat and thick you can actually hear them clicking on your floors) while you stifle a shriek, fumble for your glasses and shoes, and make a beeline for the kitchen to get the damn Raid can you had finally felt safe enough to put back in the pantry. Spray everywhere anyway, hoping science finds a cure for the cancer you’re giving yourself, and later find roachie belly up next to your bed just as you’re about to leave. Snapchat his death as a warning to other roaches.
After the travel woes of getting here (four days stuck in various airports, hotels, and weather, six days no water in house, laptop crashing, rainbow chip frosting exploding, shampoo exploding) the current prayer list is down to having hot water at home (it’s been about six months without though, so . . . ) and air con in my classroom. It’s been four sweaty weeks. Luckily, it’s currently “winter” here in Brazil.
And I might be turning brasilera – 70 degrees F and I’m in pants and a sweater. However with 100% humidity and children of any age, it’s just gross teaching in a room with no windows and no fan and the occasional nocturnal ant of unusual sizes, which we run into when we break into the school to retrieve our speakers so we can watch trashy reality tv….why can’t I stop watching Bachelor spin-offs? Bachelor in Paradise is so so terrible but like . . . I just unwind to that nonsense. Actually, I really like seeing the bros try to educate each other and stick up for the ladies when scumbags like Joe try to play the game. And I still think I should be cast as the resident sidekick and comedic relief, as described here.
As a teaching staff, we often joke about the part of our contract that says we are being paid for teaching our classes, and something cryptic and ominous that says “and other duties as assigned.” For me, despite not teaching any middle or high school students, this means that for the second year in a row, I found myself heading up the annual Lock-in at school. I was in cahoots with Pratchie, as I so affectionately call the guy who will, no questions asked, don a Blue Man suit and scuba gear while I wear a banana suit and captain’s hat to hook him like a fish while dancing to a Sesame Street song about water in front of the entire school to advertise for an event neither of us really want to do, but both of us are clearly born to do.
So we pulled out all our camp counselor skills, added a soapy slip n’ slide kickball game, soapy bounce house soccer, and the greatest thing ever – Just Dance Now – on a jumbo screen outside, and stayed up until 7am with 40 crazy kids. They barfed over the annual milk chugging and Chubby Bunny contests; my soft-spoken, mad art professor South African colleague belted out the theme from Titanic with headphones on during iPod IDol; the girls flooded the bathroom; they all tried to “make purple” with each other, demolished an ice cream bar, and even collapsed a giant inflatable slide on itself. It was epic. I still feel like I was hit by a truck, but oh, the memories.
Sidenote: This is the Buzzfeed list that is currently compromising everything I feel about loving my age.
I am planning on going to the Amazon for a week in October to swim with piranhas. In the Amazon. (you have to say it like the movie or just you can’t say it at all.)
Also there are PINK DOLPHINS LIKE ARE YOU SERIOUS and I’m gonna hold a freaking sloth tomy bosom if it’s the last thing I do. Please join me. Or join a prayer circle for my safety. I’m not always so good at the wise choices.
Also, it’s my wee friend’s birthday. She makes the sun shine, we have sticker parties, she tells me what to wear every day, and when I say “give me some sugar” she comes running into my arms. The kind of kid that restores your faith in kids, raised by the kind of parents who restore your faith in almost everything good.
I gave her a Snow White purse, which made her burst into tears, because it wasn’t a dress.
She recovered quickly, especially when I tickled her brother until he farted.
This is the greatest infomercial of all time. I cry every time I watch it, and if you don’t like it, we might not be able to be friends:
And if you need to hear it today, and even if you don’t – I see you, you are important, and I love you.
Sunglasses Always Fit 
tell me what you think bout this!