Good News.

Only 100 days until the wedding. That means tomorrow we'll be in double digits. I don't actually keep track but all of the wedding related websites that I'm registered with count down for me : )

Flashback.

I'm working at Inglemoor High School again today -- Thank God, I haven't worked since April 30th (the last time I was here for this same teacher) and I've been going a little crazy. That's something that really stinks about this job. I woke up ready to work every single morning last week and ended up just laying in bed waiting for my phone to ring, but I didn't get any sub calls. It just seems so unfair. However, on the flip side, nice to know that our teachers are well and healthy and staying in their classrooms and getting things done... not a whole lot gets accomplished when there are subs in the classrooms. Sad but true. Even right now, the kids all have a review sheet in front of them and some of them are working, but, mostly, there's a lot of talking. You can't really force high schoolers to do their work. When we first got in here I asked if anyone would take the attendance for me so I didn't have to shout out all the names (plus, I can't pronounce half of them!). One girl suggested I wait about 20 minutes until everyone arrived. I don't think so! If I can be on time so can they!! I told her I would be taking attendance now and they would be marked tardy. I had 8 people absent at the beginning of class and 4 have shown up with late slips.

Anyhow, when I was here the last time, I got to take my class to an assembly. It was so weird to be in there as a teacher and not a student! It was a really cool assembly and there were a bunch of performances (dancing, singing, martial arts, ukulele playing...) and I was really impressed with how the ASB students planned and ran the whole thing. They were so efficient. Huge change from the assemblies I used to attend here where we spent half the time trying to quiet everyone down. When you think about it though, it's not easy to get 1800+ people to all be quiet at the same time. Other than that, not much has changed here. Sherwood Forest is looking a little over grown (there are trees in the corridor that you walk through to get from the front parking lot past all of the office areas and into the main campus area -- our principal's name is Mrs. Sherwood so it is fondly referred to as "Sherwood Forest") and you kind of have to duck to walk under the branches when there's a bunch of people just standing around, as there tends to be. It's strange running into teachers that I had when I was here. I was using the "teacher" bathroom in the office after the assembly and I saw one of my English teachers in there. She's very pregnant and stunning, of course, I'm so jealous, I want to be pregnant and stunning, and she was quite surprised to see me. In some ways, I feel grown up but in others, I feel like a little girl playing pretend or something, like I'm too young to be here. The best thing about being here is that it's familiar. I know where everything is and I'm not scared to be here. High schoolers are scary, yes, but being at a school that I know so well, with teachers that smile and greet me warmly, puts me right back into my comfort zone. It's a good day.

"Miss...?"

"Miss Sodium? It's 'Miss Sodium' right?" This is my favorite so far. It's always interesting to hear what the kids come up with when trying to say my name. Some of them are rather ridiculous like... "Mrs. Tara's Sister" for example. And of course "Miss Soda," they think this is quite funny. One kid actually said it right the other day when he was just reading it off the board! Amazing.

A Taste of Britain.

There's this shop in Redmond called The British Pantry and it has a restaurant on either side of it. In celebration of Steven's birthday we visited Neville's yesterday, the restaurant to the left (we're saving the Three Lions Pub for another night). I know that it wasn't exactly as British as what we experienced in England but it was so fun to be there. Quite a few of the customers there had British accents (makes it seem pretty legit if the Brits go there...) and it was so wonderful to eat fish and chips and steak and ale pie while listening to the accents and enjoying the pub-like atmosphere. It was so cute! We walked through the shop afterward and saw many of the things I used to enjoy cooking with or consuming in England -- OXO cubes, Paxo stuffing mix, Cadbury chocolates, squash, P&G tips tea, cans of mushy peas!!! Unfortunately everything costs about five times as much as it should so we didn't buy anything. It was just a lovely little nostalgic experience : ) And now we're both ready to go back to England.