Place Setter

This blog is due a long posting on my recent trip to Maui this month. But of course I got a sinus infection when I got home and moped around on the couch for a week with an ice pack.

I am starting a new job tomorrow and I'm both excited and nervous. I'm teaching high school ceramics...at my old high school Hillsdale. Coming back after 18 years is a total trip. The school has changed a lot. They are part of a program run through Stanford University called Smaller Learning Communities. The academic buildings have been totally redesigned into 3 smaller school that are largely autonomous in terms of administration and budgeting, etc. Everyone I've met at the school is really happy and positive about being there. The arts dept. hasn't really been enfolded into the program, but they're trying to find ways to integrate the curriculum. I'm all about that, so it seems like a good time to get on board.

I'm curious about my students and I hope they'll like me. I'm praying for at least one emo kid who cares what happened in the 80's. My boyfriend's son Aldrin talks about bands he likes and stuff he's into and I can barely keep up. At least I've heard about anime and hyphy.

I'm hoping to widen their horizons a little. I grew up a bored teenager in San Mateo with big dreams of getting out. I made it as far as Oakland anyway! I took Alex with me on Friday and dropped him off at the mall for two hours while I had a meeting at the school. He couldn't believe that this was the only thing to do in the entire area for young folk. Back in my day there was actually a cool bookstore by Central Park in downtown San Mateo that my friends and I would hang out at, but they tore that down in my early 20's and replaced it with a Noah's/Starbucks combo.

Anyway. New Deadwood on tonight. Tomorrow I take my first real commute. I hate the San Mateo bridge with a passion, so I am doing something weird. We drove my car up to Millbrae Bart and left it parked in the nieghbourhood. So hopefully it will be there tomorrow when I take Bart to Millbrae and drive to Hillsdale. It's around a 90 minute commute, but an hour will be on Bart. I'll be leaving around 7 am here, which is a big adjustment to my lifestyle, but I'm done by noon or so for 4 days a week, so. Wish me luck.