Tracks to Clementine

Maybe we should add some knockers here?

It was exactly the same as you're thinking right now, that sort of knockers. Except really it meant a Loyalist spy knocking on the door of Colonel Rall, trying to let him know that the Patriots were planning to attack.

The kindergarten teachers started the giggling and it just went from there.

That's one of my favorite things about teaching at this workshop every summer: a roomful of classroom teachers is just as potty-minded as their students. Love it. And apparently this year I don't feel quite so much an outsider, because I've been having many a useful conversation with the attendees.

On the other hand, I've been feeling a little too outsider art. Like after I listen to an exercise being explained with perhaps a bit too much "yes, and..." Sometimes this makes me consider switching professions, other times it just causes me to excuse myself to the restroom. Which is exactly what I did in 4th grade: claim a headache and win a trip to the nurse's office when presented with an exercise that I'd already done one million times.

These days I regularly get migraines, so maybe that ruse wasn't all that worth it. But it is often smart to recognize that sometimes "supportive" means "removing one's self from the immediate situation."

And this does have benefits, because it can mean noticing that you've got time to swap out the snickerdoodle in your lunch for the oatmeal raisin in another's.

Posted by Ida at July 13, 2005 04:40 PM