Three weeks.

Parents are insane
I hope I am never going to be a parent. They day the child comes into the world, their sanity seems to leave it. About 60% find it again in a few years, but there is a good portion of the parent population out there that seem very happy to stay permanently insane. Take for instance, the parents of the 26 children I teach. As far as I knew, they were all sane, intelligent, and even highly educated people. But then, WHAP! CRAZY! Perhaps it's seasonal, like allergies... it seems to coincide uncannily with Report Card time. And the most common symptom? Hit the teacher when she is down!

In the last three weeks, I have had three parents (that I know of) go completely nuts, send me long, long emails about what I am doing wrong in the class. Of course, some of them actually did condescend to throw me a compliment before launching the complaint grenade, but I must say that the vast majority of what was said fits more in the "Here's how to do your job - because you suck, you know" category.

Not only do they email me their vague innuendos and snide comments, but they first get together in an 'ad-hoc' parent advisory group, behind my back, to discuss what they should email me. Then, they Cc the resulting email to the entire parent group for my class. How expansively generous of them!

However, things seem to be looking better. The three parents who were evidently behind this mysterious agenda suddenly decided to haul their kids out of the school and enroll them elsewhere, with mutterings of discontent about "The Situation" and "The Unresolved Issues" I, for my part, am feeling relieved (though my feathers are still in some disarray), and even rather sorry for the teacher who is getting them in her class (I know the teacher where they all went).

The break in the clouds is the fact that the other, non-crazy, parents have made such an effort to come forward with expressions of dismay, sympathy, and geniune concern for how I am "holding up" and "coping" with the "bad hand" I was apparently dealt. That, and the incredibly supportive staff at my school almost - almost - make all of this worth it.

Almost.

In the meantime, since I still have not an inkling of what they were really up to, I will continue ho hum, surviving until Xmas break. Report cards go home Monday, and conferences are on Thursday and Friday.

Three weeks.

I will survive.

(I hope)

just wook at da cute witto bunny wunny!

I have a bunny wabbit! She (according to the shop, a she) is sooo cute... A baby netherland dwarf, barely 6 weeks old, all white, but for a small black spot behind one ear, and black eyeliner around her beautiful dark eyes.

I think I'm in love!

tooo much foooood

I think I will not eat for a few days... Lillian (grade one teacher and friend) called me at 8:30 am this morning (ON A SUNDAY!)... but since it was to invite me for dimsum, naturally I forgave her immediately! One of her many sisters came down to Vancouver for the weekend, and they were going for food food food before her return to Kelowna later today. So we met at the Golden Phoenix on Broadway and Nanaimo, and ate for oh, two hours or so! Now, that area is not my favourite place to be, even at 11am on a sunny Sunday afternoon: some ugly dude in a car called out to me as I was walking to the restaurant... ugh!

As if that was not enough to burst an intestine (the food, not the ugly dude), later today (6:30ish) Megan (cute friend of mine who moved down from Pit Medows a few months ago) decided that she wanted to go for Chinese food. As she suggested a light soup, I figured, hey, why not? Well now I know: the Taiwan Beef Noodle House on Grandville street has every kind of noodle soup known to the taiwanese, and it turns out that sharing an enormous bowl of beef brisket and noodle soup simply becomes two enormous bowls! It's almost the miracle of the seven fishes!

And so now I sit typing this, fervently hoping that the yoga ball won't burst!

not dead yet

Tis a good thing I am no correspondant for some paper or other, for what news would you receive? I hope that I will improve beyond making barely more than one post a month!

You may be wondering about the cats.... Hobbes has gained weight, no longer needs force feeding (thank goodness ~ I can now avoid wearing cat food to work). He has become healthy enought to complain about being sequestered in my room. He is unhappy in the main part of the appartment, because Coby and he still fight, but he was unhappy in my room, and showed me most generously by annointing my bed! Not so serendipitously, that is about the time I decided to reclaim my room as my own! I left both of them out that night, and, having found them both alive (though grumpy) the next morning, decided that their chances of surviving the rest of their lives together in the same place were getting better every hour.

The funny part is that while Coby seems to have relented enough to chase Hobbes merely for sport, Hobbes is now the one who hisses and growls on sight! So unforgiving! Ah well, they still eat separately, because Coby will never be above stealing food whenever the opportunity presents itself!

Does my writing style feel a little passé in its execution? I have been reaquainting myself with Jane Austen recently, and have found a renewed passion for elegantly turned phrases and high flown vocabulary! Sensible? Perhaps not, but satisfactory nonetheless. Who can deny a teacher the pleasure of playing with language?