Day One

I don't really thrive on chaos. The best I can do is ignore it, seek out and perhaps imitate the eye that centers the storm. I have some experience in that regard, given that the first hour of every semester always ends up swirling around me, no matter what I prepare or what I resolve. It's not bad, exactly, just the way it is: I am never going to pass a dull ninety minutes passing out books and syllabi when we reconvene in any January. And, hell, who would want to. Good thing, not me.

Theoretically it would be nice not to be running the halls, looking for the lost, rounding up an AWOL Chinese tour guide-slash-interpreter, warning teachers about the new non-English speaking whom they'll be instructing, re-directing a roomful of kids on outdated schedules until I realize that my own class has been whittled to. . .three? That can't be right, though in a way it'd be lovely. Where are the rest and what has gone wrong? I'd investigate, except it's time for the bell.

And then came a class, actual students to teach, and glory hallelujah I actually did something right. The kids who for months have been shoved in a corner waiting for spare moments now have a class of their own and, by jove, it works. Or it did for a day, or for an hour and change, but I take what I can. I taught, and they learned. And I, at least, had fun.

Next time flat-out beginners will be joining us from continents south and east, and the days of tag-team-one-minute-please will return for round 2. It's inevitable, probably in my contract, that things stay a bit of a mess (enough with the meaningful looks at my desk). But little by little good things happen here, and somehow I stay a half-step ahead.