Round Two

The new school year has begun, and my two strongest impulses of the week were to, first, kidnap my extremely tiny, waddling 2 year olds to keep as pets and, secondly, to string the sock monkey puppet up by his neck with a sign attached to his chest reading: “Goodbye, cruel world.”

There are brand new names for me to forget and new parents to court using only smiles and gestures. I have a half black, half Japanese student in one of my classes this year and in her, I see my beloved Peaches as well as the potential for my first true teacher’s pet. For his part, Sean has met my evil former class of 13 year olds and described the experience as “grand.” I don’t know whether I am relieved or disappointed.

I have two classes of kindergarten-age children this year; children without their mama-sans for the first time. The first few weeks of any 5 year old student’s life naturally might result in tears; add a pale, big nosed, funny-looking alien freak to mix and the terror becomes unreal. Out of 8 students, 3 absolutely refused to enter my class the first day, screwing their faces into their mother’s soggy shirts, barely muffling their shrieks of “No!! No!! I won’t go in!” Tears are contagious – I, too, felt on the verge looking at those absolutely miserable, petrified faces until I realized that my evil scheme was right on track. You see, I don’t consider a day worth living unless I have made a Japanese child cry. At this rate, I might hit 20 this year after all. Yatta.