Sunglasses Always Fit

There are a few days that really make me miss home, and Thanksgiving is one of them. I don’t have any American friends here and the way I feel about the day doesn’t translate cross-culture. I’m coping well – bought myself flowers, plants, wine, took the kids on a massive field trip, led the staff devotions where I made pumpkin bread and cornbread, forced everyone to sing a song and do a gratitude journal and listen to me wax on about the complicated history of Pilgrims and Native Americans.

I’ve only cried three times so far today. It’s a win.

We’re 15 weeks into the school year – three weeks until we break for Christmas, and I’m realizing I haven’t blogged about how things are going. I don’t know why . . . it’s been easier in a lot of ways this year – I’m back in an age group I relate to better and I get to teach actual academic content, which is more fulfilling. However, it’s been harder in a lot of ways – another year with a new teaching partner/assistant/almost all the curriculum in the school has been turned on its head/I have a pretty challenging class.

Personally, my life has been blessedly full of good things like new friends, new plants, traveling freely again, feeling really settled into where my life is and who I am as a person. Wins on top of wins. Of course, interspersed amongst all these blessings come a lot of moments that make me question everything, especially my career choice. So let’s dive in. 

I enjoy teaching fourth grade only a thousand times more than first grade like last year. But. They’re at this weird age – somewhere between being little kids and then growing into being too cool. They are entirely ego-centric and we work constantly on thinking from different perspectives. I’ll be talking about something and one will say “I’ve never heard of thaaaat” or “but I’ve never seen that before.” and so I have to stop and ask “Do you think, I mean, is it possible, that at nine years old, you might still have things to learn? And that might be the point of school? Where we are?”

They can’t regulate themselves at all and cry all the time and interrupt me all the time to ask questions about anything ALL THE TIME to the point that one morning I set a timer to see how long I would be allowed to teach without a student blurting out. The record? Two minutes. TWO MINUTES. All I was able to do was ask them the materials to get out and tell them to come to the carpet with our novel to read. That’s it. Then someone said “who farted?”

Hormones are beginning to function, leading to supposed “love connections” that they firmly deny but gossip about constantly. Some kids are way more mature than others, acting like little adults in the room, picking up on my sarcasm and we crack up when we catch each other’s eyes in the middle of a weird situation. Because most parents don’t regulate screen time, the children are seeing all kinds of things they shouldn’t, and even at 9 and 10 years old lose the plot completely if the answer to a maths problem is “69.” Then they repeat the number ad nauseam until I lose my cool and ask if they know why they think it’s funny?

“Not really, I just saw it on Youtube.” cool cool cool how do i teach against that?!

Other things fourth grade boys think are funny: “deez nuts,” butt, balls, wiener, sausage, sack, crack, random phrases they use like “mommy!” said in a high pitched voice, words they make up like “saba-di-doinkie,” when someone picks a booger – but they hide in corners to pick their own, the word “fat” in any circumstance. If someone looks “creepy” or “stupid” or “weird” which is all based on ever-evolving standards I don’t bother to understand. They love to call things “satisfying” or “intense.” Everything is VERY hard and they DONT get it and WHY do we have to do this, Miss WeighT?!

So while I’m thrilled to be actually teaching content again (the high I got off of explaining long division, I cannot compare) and am constantly catching myself giving Ted talks on colonialism or why we need to save bees to a rapt audience, I am once again navigating kids calling each other gay as an insult, pre-teen tears about anything and nothing, and obsessions ranging from Paw Patrol to Messi’s career choices. They are starting to smell. They repeat family gossip and political opinions from home. It’s charming.

I still see my first grade students from last year all the time; they shout my name like I’m a celebrity when we pass each other on the stairs and come up for hugs or to show me their latest loose tooth. I miss the relative cuteness of it. Sort of.

And then in between all the school stuff that makes this a “new year” (teachers think from August to June), there’s been the normal, everyday, amazing terrifying boring moments of being alive. I went to India (amazing), I ran a 10k at Disneyland with friends, which involved getting up at 3:40am (weirdly exhilarating, proud of myself), I was followed home by and verbally attacked by some random guy standing on my street at 2am (terrifying, made me stay indoors for a week and now everyone is a potential attacker), tried a new dentist to get a cleaning and a new mouthguard (boring) and cried in the chair because now they clean your teeth with like a water-based powerdrill?! Unnecessary. Way too loud. (terrifying)

I’ve been ghosted by nine men on Tinder/Bumble. I’ve bought 7 new plants (rounding down from about 12). I got a $1500 dollar refund from President Biden and promptly spent it on plane tickets. Went to the horse races and lost no money but won a hangover. I’ve read 30 books since school started, over 130 this year so far, and have really made reading my escape.

I’ve been to the beach, played volleyball for the first time since I threw my back out, started weekly hikes slash therapy sessions with other friends from work, been chased by wild boars (slight exaggeration, but very scary), hosted Friendsgiving for 22 people from 8 different countries and it was the absolute BEST. 

It’s been life. 

A few people send me a meme saying it reminded them of me that says to do “main character sh*t.” And I think that lately, I’ve been doing that GOOD. My life has been a GOOD balance of a lot of normal, day-to-day grind, kick ass at my job but complain about it all the time, miss my family back home but live in my own sphere in a comfortable, grateful kind of way. And then the moments where I look around and wonder “where the heck has the time done gone?” because I’m about to be 40 and that should . . . that should mean something, right?

What it should mean, and to whom it must hold meaning . . . remains to be determined. But it will be determined by me. Maybe I’ll never figure it out. Maybe I’ll just keep enjoying things, and that will mean enough. And if I’ve got good people to enjoy it with, that will be enough. Until next time . . .