Quite the interesting day at work yesterday; more about that tonight when I have a chance to hit the Internet cafe. (I'm at work now.) I'm at the Internet cafe now. So yesterday is my four-classes-in-one-day day, which starts at 8:00a. Ouch. Being the grasshopper that I am, I got to school at 7:15a to do my lesson plan for the 8am class. After that, I had about an hour and a half to prepare for my noon class, which is right after my Spanish lesson. So about 2pm I am finally on my way home via the Donut Lady's car with just enough time to eat my tacos and donut and drink the coke I bought at the miscelania in order to get change to pay for lunch. Then brainstorm some ideas for my two afternoon classes, and back I go. My 4:30p class is made up of what I call diaper-babies: 3-4 year olds. They don't talk much; some of them not at all. I've been fretting about what seems to me to be a blatant lack of progress convincing these kids to parrot back some English, but yesterday I said, fuck it, and loaded up the classroom with toys (hula hoops for colors, some foam numbers, stuffed animals, and crayons), and just played with them for an hour and a half. I'd hand them a foam number, say "3!", and have them pound it in place. Or bounce them around while I sang to that stupid kid's tape. Or whatever. It went really well until they all started to eat the foam numbers, so I started ripping them out of their teeth and putting them back in their box. While I was doing that they decided on their own to sit down and start coloring quietly. ! Fine with me. 20 minutes of that and it was time to go.

I felt pretty good at the start of my next class, a bunch of middle-school-age kids, instead of tired from corraling the diaper babies, and class got off to a great start. They were into the games I picked, and we're all laughing and talking IN ENGLISH (not very usual with this group) when one kid decides to cut the friendship bracelet off the wrist of another kid. No blood, but a ton of tears; apparently this bracelet was a lot more than just a fashion statement. Well, that took the wind out of our sails, and it was a bummer to end on such a bad note.

But mostly, it was a darn good day. As I was bouncing along home I wondered why I had so much pep, then I remembered the coke I had with my lunch, and it all became clear. So I think I'm adding half a bottle of coke to my Tu/Th routine from now on!

And more on our moving this weekend, too. Ready? Oscar moved out of #2 to a place around the corner, so now the guy in #3 is going to move into Oscar's old place for a few days while the couple in #2 move into #3 so that Greg and I can move into #2. After our place is empty the guy in #1 will move into our old unit, #4. Then, next month when the choicer, upstairs units are available, Greg and I will likely move upstairs. Then I think we'll stay put for awhile. So our address won't change, just the apartment number, but it won't really matter for mail as Manuel just takes it around to all the units anyway.

For all of you who have asked me why I would sell my Bay Area house and move to Mexico, check it out. And how 'bout this one from The Atlantic Monthly? Which, by the way, was awfully right-wing this month.