If you were in my movie...

March has become an immensely horribly busy month for me.  I can't remember March ever being so distinctive before.  I have managed to pack (not by my own planning) two major school events and the MA course into a 3 week period, along with agreeing to sew 45 kimonos for my current students, 25 berets for my son and his classmates and teachers, traveling to São Paulo for a weekend training, not to mention taking a group of 23 students and almost as many parents to São Paulo at the end of the month for the DI Celebration which involves countless meetings with parents and students involved, and don't even get me started on the last minute additions to this trip.  Actually, I didn't pack any of this, it all seems to have packed itself.  I have been running on 4 hour sleep nights for the last three weeks, been sick twice (still recovering), and one of my bottom wisdom teeth has decided to break surface which has resulted in some of the worst tooth pain I have felt since I cracked my tooth two years ago and an extremely swollen face.  I'm hungry and I don't want to eat because even opening my mouth hurts, let alone chewing.  I have read almost all of our course text book in a matter of two weeks and only stopped reading because I found the first 60 pages of the last chapter are missing.  I'll have to chase those down tomorrow.  Today I took 5 quizzes online, wrote two papers, did 3 discussion questions and read two articles.  And I still have more to do.  Oh, and I cooked some soy chicken with carrots for our snack during the course tomorrow.  I'm not even going to go into what I have to do for the course this week, it's really not what I want to think about right now.  When I got home yesterday, I took a five hour nap and hid from all social contact for the entire day.  Then we watched a movie that was absolutely one of the worst movies I have watched in a long time.  It felt really good to not work for a bit.  Today was homework day as I neglected to do anything productive yesterday save dream of getting my PhD.



In the morning, I usually listen to my ipod in the van, rather than chat with my colleagues.  It's a good way to start the day, just watching the sun on the water on the way to school, and I can almost just feel optimistic about the possibilities for the day.  Sometimes I imagine I am in a movie and the music is the sound track, and what might be the next obstacle in the plot line.  Everyone's life seems a bit movie like I suppose.  Some more than others (my dear friend of the dourado mamão could sell her story for a novela, although unfortunately her experience is not far off the norm for new arrivals- come to think of it, I'm not sure when I got so passive about the things that really used to get to me).  I also think of very interesting things to write on this blog, although they seldom get written because I am in a van and no where near a computer with the necessary speed or time to write.  But I did remember the movie thing and I did take time out of my reading and writing to write about it, just so you all know I'm not dead. 

My quarantine is over and I have been back at work. It's always fun to sit around at home and have me time, but it's horribly boring when you can't leave the house. During my stint as a couch resident I found I was often cold in the morning, so I took up drinking a lot of tea (also because I some how had it in my head that I would expel the virus from my system faster if I kept trying to fill myself with liquids). I went through most of our supply in a matter of a week and went to restock today while we went grocery shopping. I came across one called "Misto" that has apple, caju, something or another of rose and a few other things. It's quite good, slightly sweet, and strong. Sweet is important because I discovered somewhere in the last 4 years of living here, I have stopped liking my tea with sugar (except when it's Earl Grey with milk), lest I put a tad too much in and kill the flavor of the tea.

The DI season is about to start - will I handle it better than last year? I sure hope so - if the first week of school / traveling back from the states with 300 lbs of luggage hadn't given me a shingles attack, DI certainly would have.

I know some people are waiting for a long report on the DI celebration this past weekend in Rio. I promise, I will try to write something long winded and explanatory, at some point, but right now I have to play catch up with my classroom, and try to reorganize my life so I can function. In short, the kids did great, I loved the experience, and despite all my belly aching and complaints, I WILL do it again next year and I WILL love it and it IS worth it. If you don't know what DI is, check out the program and get involved!