Signs of cold weather to come...

I was up before the sun today to go to school. I opened my window when I woke up, and two things happened. First, I realized I could see my breath. Second, I heard someone scraping ice off their car windows. Two signs that, though winter isn’t quite upon us yet, it’s right around the corner. The mornings are so tough already. Getting up when it’s still pitch black outside is not easy. It’s weird to walk through the center of town at 8 am. Cars have headlights on, the lampposts are all still lit, and there are even small lights lining the sidewalk across the bridge. It feels like the middle of the night, and without a clock, you wouldn’t know the difference. Yet, everyone walks around normally in the dark, carrying briefcases and backpacks on the way to work or school.

Dawn.

School today was pretty good. I talked with one class about Rosie the Riveter. They just finished a unit on stereotypes of men and women, and gender roles. I showed them a video of the song about Rosie that came out in 1942. I’m not sure they totally got what I was saying about women in the workforce, but they definitely liked the song. A couple of the boys were singing along.

In the other class, I watched a bunch of really terrible skits about going to England. I shouldn’t say they were terrible; there’s a handful of kids in the class who speak English really well. They must have learned the phrases “my accent is rubbish” and “I’m crap at English” in class, because almost every group used one or both of those lines. Something that surprised me: only one student (the one girl in the class who does drama) even made a tiny effort to act in the skit. There was literally NO emotion otherwise. I feel like, when I was in high school, that was my favorite thing to do. Anyone can write something to prove they know the language. It’s a lot more fun to write and perform a skit, isn’t it? Maybe everyone is just too afraid of making mistakes to enjoy themselves?

Other than that, not a lot going on. It was my birthday on Tuesday so a bunch of us had dinner together (including an enormous and fabulous cake made by Jen) and then a little party. We had so much fun hanging out! It feels like, because there are so many of us, we’ll be celebrating a birthday every couple of weeks. Not that I’m complaining, of course…!