"How Many Times Will The Teeth Bite The Tongue?"

God, I'm glad this week is over. Talk about long. Tutoring every night except Monday on top of teaching more classes at Accotink (today I had to sub in the Spanish class for one period since the teacher was out...actually knew more Spanish than the kids, which was surprising since I haven't had Spanish since 1996 at the most recent). It's not that I mind the extra responsibility there, just that I'd appreciate having some time to prepare for the classes. I still don't have a planning period, and I can't really use the afterschool hour yet because I'm still having to get back to Fairfax right after Accotink lets out to tutor at Huntington.

But that's going to change after Tuesday. Yes, only two more days of tutoring at Huntington, and I'm done! Believe me, that is something of a Godsend, 'cause that job was about to wear me out. I've noticed that my patience with both the kids at Accotink and the kids at Huntington isn't as much as it ought to be. Thing is, I can pretty much handle the kids at Accotink until a given time...around 4.00, usually, and then I've reached my limit. Only problem is that I then have to go deal with other kids at Huntington, where my disciplining options are fewer and less effective. So I never get any downtime, and that means I'm harder on the students at Accotink and Huntington than they probably deserve. This strikes me as a greater problem than my lack of sleep (which I'm used to) or even my lack of planning time (I can always just make it up as I go along...for now).

Got to talk to my niece Bailey this evening. It took a few minutes to convince her to get on the phone and chat with me, but she actually talked to me this time (a great improvement over previous attempts), and we think what we're going to do from now on is have her and Aunt Donna call me instead of the other way around. We think part of the problem is that I keep surprising her and suddenly reminding her that I'm not around, and she gets mad at me for it.

Of course, when I did talk to her, she had to ask me what I was doing right that second, what my mom was doing, what my dad was doing...she has to go through every member of the family each time. It's her ritual, her way of keeping track and making sure no other members of the family have suddenly disappeared. Probably her way of coping with/understanding her parents' split. She's also just used to everyone being around, to all of us showing up at the same time for gatherings and all. I don't think she quite understands what it means when we tell her I've moved across the country, though she did say she was happy she'd get to see me at Christmas. I'll have to find her a good Christmas present, I guess.

Found volume six of Trigun Maximum this afternoon, which made me happy. My only complaint about manga graphic novels is the length of time I have to wait between volumes: it's been months since volume 5 came out. Shaman King is much worse about this than Shaman King, though: volume 7 came out in August, and volume 8 won't come out until January of 2006. This annoys me. I'm not a particularly patient person, I'm afraid, which is probably why I don't follow more manga and anime series than I do (though I notice volume 5 of Samurai Champloo is out now, so I'll probably have to grab that at some point...that series ought to be completed by January, if what I've read is correct).

We've decided to start a music club at Accotink. I'm apparently going to be in charge of it. We've got about four or five people already interested in it and another teacher interested in helping me, which is good. Assistance is always a plus. What we hope to do is teach those who want to learn, say, the guitar, how to actually play. Once everyone has the basics (which may take awhile), we're going to try to perform. Probably small stuff at first: school functions, things like that.

Tomorrow will be the first day I get to sleep in I've had since I started working at Accotink nearly a month ago (wow, already almost a month). I plan to take full advantage of this fact, and then maybe get around to discussing what works and doesn't work with Dylan's evangelical Christian album Slow Train Coming. Surprisingly, it's not as bad as I feared.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Uncle Tupelo, "Atomic Power"