The Kaye Way: June 2015

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Just call me Superteacher!

Actually, please don't. I prefer "Miss Karen".

I've been off work for summer holidays for 2 weeks. In those two weeks, since I work very close to my school, I've seen 3 of my students while I've been out and about. I loved seeing them (truly) and it's been a positive experience every time. But this last time made me very happy.

I saw Elise yesterday as I was coming back from my ~~exhausting ass-haul~~ run through my favourite park. She was with her grandma and we stopped to chat. After a few minutes of trying to convince her that I was indeed Miss Karen even though I wasn't inside the school, she gave me a big, sweet hug. Her grandma told me that she would be going to a French immersion school this coming September and they had to do an interview with her first to see how much she knew. Her grandmother was impressed at how much she could speak.

Now excuse m while I take all the credit for that. I think it's so important to hear different languages as early as possible so at circle time I'll count, do colours and some calendar stuff in French (and sometimes Sign Language and Hebrew just for shits and giggles). At storytime, I'll often read a book in French as well. They didn't do very much French before I showed up, so I took it upon myself to throw some in on the daily.

Result! As I stood there, all sweaty in the street, I never felt prouder of myself. Okay, I actually have felt prouder but not that day. I walked back home with a smile on my face and a spring in my step and that's saying a lot after a hot, unpleasant attempt at jogging.

So all that to say, I'm a pretty good teacher.

kxx

Monday, June 15, 2015

What a month

***I can't even begin to tell you what I've been dealing with the past month. Things have been crazy at work (if you think things can't get crazy at a preschool, you are dead wrong), things have been crazy with my health and things have been crazy with my family life. Not all crazy bad, mind you but crazy busy. Let's break it down shall we?

Work
-We had a girl who worked with us that didn't work out. It happens. But that made the report card split left to just my co-worker Heidi and me. A lot of report cards. A lot.
- Report cards? And did I mention that there are a lot of them? A lot.

Health
- In December, I got a cold. Hey, I work with nearly 60 3-year-olds. It's going to happen. In January, I was still sick. I chalked it up to getting sneezed and coughed upon on the daily. By the time March rolled around and I was still sleeping 9 hours and getting up exhausted, feeling like I'm living underwater, I started thinking it's something else, but I was still too lazy to call the doctor. In April, my co-workers staged an intervention. Fed up with seeing me with kleenex hanging out of my nostrils and hacking constant green ooze, they made me call the doctor in front of them in the lunchroom.

When I finally saw the doc, he told me that because he's never seen me so sick, and I have a history of serious illnesses in my family, I should go get a chest Xray, blood test and a CAT scan of my sinuses. Then he threw the word lymphoma at me. Not cool, Dr. Dick (seriously, that's his name). Not cool.

Anyway, long story short, he gave me some heavy duty drugs in case it was just a sinus infection and they worked within a day. A day, people. I didn't realize how sick I was until I got better. My energy level is through the roof and I feel like a kid again. Still have an appointment for a cat scan, though...***

________________________________________________________________

I started that post about a month ago. I was too busy even to press "publish". Since the last time I posted, I have had motorcycle lessons (failed the final test but still had the lessons), had a dragonboat festival, watched Audrey get a silver medal with her rugby team, took our preschool kids on several field trips, had Mother's Day, went to Comic-Con, baked double sized cupcakes for a friend's wedding, went to that wedding, reconnected with old friends, ran a 5K, gone to a few baseball games, gone to see Ed Sheeran, seen a bunch of movies, babysat a bunch of chicken eggs, celebrated Elliott's 19th birthday, watched Audrey play the flute and cried in my car from stress.

Now I'm finally on summer holidays. I've taken a deep breath and I'm ready to be selfish. I'm going to sleep, read, watch Netflix and catch up on all the stuff I have on the PVR. I'm going to lie in my hammock and take the odd afternoon nap. And I'm not going to feel guilty about it. And the next time I hear anyone say that I'm so lucky to have the summer off I'm going to show them this post and the tear stained dashboard of my car, flick their ear (HARD), tell them I fucking deserve it, and pour myself another Fireball.

Here is a sample of a few of the things I got up to while I was away...