To celebrate Doris’, Happy Mother’s Day!
We had a baby in the house! Super cutie. And I met my first, live Apple Watch person – who I admiringly tell you that she is old enough to be my mother and is an early adopter! Impressive. We tried “tapping” each other and failed. Our husbands laughed at us – they suggested that we could just turn slightly towards each other and talk the old fashioned way.
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I’m procrastinating terribly. One more final on Monday and then the term is OVER! I’m free for the summer. I’m already thinking of things to do to take up the extra time. A new summer project. Hmmmm.
Welcome home mom and dad!
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Took a bunch of time off of work today to take Keyla driving around town, open a bank account and introduce her to Japanese food. Because I select for special needs experience (and kindness – at least what I can detect over a 30 minute Skype conversation), all other skills that other people might care more about for their childcare provider, I de-emphasize. Including driving. All the au pairs arrive here with an international drivers license, but there is nothing really like the first drive with a person who doesn’t really understand the driving rules here and doesn’t fluently speak English. I get nervous, I speak faster and louder and then I get more flustered than the person in the driver’s seat.
At the bank, we were aided by an associate who spoke: English, French, Spanish, German and Arabic. So we flitted about in two languages for an hour (?!?) setting up a bank account and later on in the day, I taught Keyla the word “flirt”.
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I dropped Nat and Dara at Dulles in the early afternoon for their flight to Thailand. See you in a few weeks!
Nat finished up her au pair year with us on Tuesday. It is my general policy to not become friends with my au pairs until after they finish up their year. I didn’t friend Nat until Tuesday night and right after she accepted my friend request she surprised us by posting this great video. She’s leaving to go home to Thailand for a few weeks and will be coming back in the summer! She and her husband Dara are renting the space in the basement, they won’t be far away.
I taught my last recitation section today. Oooof, I think this is what stressed me out the most this term. For a variety of reasons which are too boring to tell you, I couldn’t *really* adequately prepare for my class. So every week, it almost felt like I was doing some sort of improv – which, theoretically is OK if I knew the stuff like the back of my hand – but it’s a tough class (some might say, unfair – I do think a class is unfair if no one out of 50 people is getting an A and people are studying – I kid you not – 30 hours for an exam) with a lot of small details and so many questions I couldn’t answer. I just had to get comfortable with saying I dunno which I do not like to do in front of 30 people. Why do you suction first a person with Guillian-Barre syndrome who presents with shortness of breath first instead of ascultating them? Why do you have them swallow barium when they are clearly bleeding from their stomach? Uhhh, mmmm…. huh, I dunno. Oh well. It’s done. I’m happy, I think I helped them in my own small way. I briefly thought I would do it again next term, but I think I am not.
What was fun about this last class that I taught is that after I gave them my best study tips for the final, my students welcomed me into their class. Because I’m the only part-time student, I’m the only student that keeps sliding out of different cohorts. My first cohort is graduating this term. My 2nd cohort, I’ve spent three semesters with and they are moving on without me. And now I join my recitation students for my next term. Since I’ve never had this experience of having different classes, it’s been eye opening how different classes can have different personalities. My first cohort was really driven and competitive, my 2nd cohort more fun and inclusive, we’ll see what my third cohort brings. They assure me that they are a lot of fun. We’ll see.
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Jeremy and the girls took me on a walk this evening. It was beautiful. Maxi saw a fox (I think for the first time in her life) and barked and howled and pulled the leash so hard trying to fulfill her genetic destiny as a beagle!
(This didn’t happen today. But it could have. It’s so warm here… )
Keyla’s here!
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Donald… The get up? The girl?