First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. It was supposed to be Friday, but with construction and general chaos, Sr. Pat, the greatest principal ever, postponed the first day. We didn't even get the okay to move into our room until Thursday at about 1:00, so it was clearly the best option. We spent most of the day Friday moving and organizing--it only too about three hours to move our entire department's things into the classrooms--but I still don't feel at home in m y room. I can't put anything on the walls because we cant' use tape and sticky tack won't hold anything, and half of my stuff is still lost in oblivion. My desk is now a behemoth chunk of wood with two very tiny drawers, my computer that was awesome has been replaced with a giant white ogre that's probably older than me, and I have a missing cabinet that was total crap but had a bunch of projects inside. So that's awesome. It's been a weird start to the year, but I think it'll be a good one. My kids seem pretty good--I have two honors classes, several kids I've had before, and a class of seniors that I've already taught. I'm optimistic, which, basically, never happens.

The past week or so has been devoted to school--meetings all week, move in on Friday, preparations. Even though we started today, I still don't feel settled. I hope that changes as the year progresses.

I have been enjoying my last days of freedom, though, don't get me wrong. I went to see The Time Traveler's Wife the day it came out, and spent almost the entire movie crying. It was beautiful and sad, but I wanted Eric Bana to be hotter. Either way, I enjoyed the movie, but I my favorite part of the book wasn't in the movie--it showed up in a different way, but still, it was gone and I missed it. A little.

I've also spent the last two Friday nights doing the Monty's/Crazy Pianos thing, which, surprisingly, doesn't get old. Two Fridays ago I was with my neighbors, Adam and Mupi, and I saw a Nathan Followil (the drummer from Kings of Leon) look alike (soooo hot) and I kind of had to go back this Friday to see if her was there. He wasn't. Sadness. But my friend Anya WAS there because she returned from her summer in fabulous NYC! It was great to see her and catch up. I really missed having her around.

Her brother was in town last week, which is a big deal because he lives in Moscow (yes, the Moscow in Russia) and hadn't been to Miami to visit in, like, 9 years or something. So he was in town, and I got a chance to meet him, and hang out with Anya, at RA, this amazing sushi restaurant that I've been craving for about a month now. The food was, as always, delicious and the night ended up being a little birthday celebration for both Anya (who spent her b-day in NYC) and Shell, whose actual birthday it was.

I'm really gonna miss summer.