Larry's Chicken

One of the reasons I like school so much is just the times of silliness- I get just as caught up in it as the kids and we have such fun. Odd thing, I never remember school being fun when I was a student- except second-time-round in college, but that was a different kind of fun.... I hadn't learned to be silly yet.

Larry is one of the members of my 'island of misfit toys' that I have first block- my non-class class that consists of: my intern Lesley, my independent study Alex, Larry- who doesn't have a class and just needs a place to hang out... and any other lost souls that are displaced first thing in the morning. They keep the room neat and help me set up for classes, but mostly they watch movies or the animal channel and talk. Sometimes Larry sleeps in the closet. Lesley usually takes most of class to groom- make up and hair straightening, nails... Alex draws or watches or tries to teach me Spanish. Very different people who have become friends with each other, and with me. Our little island.

We were prepping for my crafts class- which required the gloves- when we started playing with the gloves... blowing them up, making them into puppets, squids, chickens. An ill-tied water-glove that I managed to burst all over me, drowning the kids in laughter. (I'm like a three-year-old, I always have to take extra clothes to school....)

I wonder if my other classmates had this type of experience in high school... I was a bit of a loner (well, more than a bit...) and 'odd' so there wasn't this type of comradery, and I don't remember the teachers ever having much fun. School was work, competition and social-anxiety hell. Now, even though I am human and get mad and frustrated and ready to 'hang them up in the sour apple tree', I love them, love my work and have such fun doing it. Sure we take things seriously- but hopefully they can look at me and see an adult who is joyful in what they do, does their job because they want to (and yeah, it pays the bills- barely)... an adult who really likes them. There are others like me here at school- I know it isn't everyones style, or appropriate for every class situation. But this is how I connect best- it took me so long to realise this. You know, up until I relaxed at teaching, I spent so much of my life worrying about being appropriate and fitting in... I was spirited, but it was rebellious not joyous. Now I am discovering the pure happiness of just being me, rubber-glove chickens and all.