Despite my fervor for blogging again, I've been away for a few days. Doing what?
Doing a Fulbright application. For a three week stay in Japan in October.
This has caused some celebration and some upset. Ben is proud and supportive. My parents, as usual, have no idea what's going on (Mom: "Fulbright? Like in that Paul Simon song?"). Colleagues...mixed. Some are interested and genuinely well-wishing. Others are...not jealous, but...jealous. I don't know. It's a weird environment right now. This is my second year, and, like a good textual critic, I've begun noticing some pattens. Strangely, things are most tense and dramatic right before Advent (teaching at a Catholic school has altered my sense of time, so be patient). I'm just going to be patient and act like things are totally normal. I figure that's the best mode in a school setting. Secondary education, as a wise someone in the building says, is where elephants go to die. It can be very solitary, which can be good and bad. My new plan is to eat lunch in my room, knit and read celebrity gossip. I'll stay out of trouble that way.
Next...a post about the annoying long-term sub who has come out of retirement for a shot at teaching at my glamourous (not) school. Here's some bait. She's a playwright who has had Broadway productions of her shitty, shitty work. My favorite thing she's done so far is the fact that she's handed out reviews to the girls from a 1985 NYT review of her work. To fifteen year olds. Here's the killer...I walked in to get something from my desk and I heard her say (as they read said review outloud), "Okay, Maddy, take the next paragraph where he talks about my nimble abilities with dialect."
