School daze | Hip to be Mom

I don’t know how I did it but I survived the first week of school. I’m teaching 2 intensive English classes and any time you’re teaching more than one class, things can get a little sticky. For me, anyways. In case you didn’t know or have forgotten, I’m a ~~bit of a~~ big klutz. Nothing I can do about it, I was just born this way.

That said, I am actually excited to be back at work – if you can believe that.

First day of class. I’ve learnt to expect the unexpected. So I try to show up early so I’ll have those few precious minutes before class to sit at my desk (oh, did I mention they gave me my own desk at the office?) to collect my stuff and my thoughts before I go hunting for my classroom which I can almost never find without going 3 times round the block!

Just for the record, I did lose my way to class. I was on the right floor (surprise, surprise!) and since I had no idea which side to turn, I decided to turn right. Wrong! Right is almost never right for me, at least, and I ended up asking for directions.

Second day of class. I figured, now what else could go wrong, right? Well, the good news is I found my classroom (in another wing) with no problems and was just getting my books out and settling down to wait for my students. A few odd students strolled in and seemed puzzled to see me. I told them I was having my class there, so maybe they were in the wrong class.

Then someone else walked in again to question what class was this. I looked this person up and down, and repeated what I’d told the 5 other people before her, only to be told she was the teacher and that I was in her classroom! Em-baaa-rrra-sssingg!

What embarrassing things have you done or heard of? I really need to know to feel better .

The beginning of manic

Posted by Clairity Comments Off

Oct 242011

I had a great weekend. Did you? We slept in, ate out, shopped. And now manic times are about to begin at the Hip household…

I’m going back to work this week. I know it’s completely out of the blue. I’ve been offered a part-time English teaching gig at college. Pretty exciting, huh? I picked up my books and teaching materials this morning and now I have ‘homework’ to do – teaching plans, handouts, games, exam questions, the works!

On the home front, we’ll have to get into some new routines on the days that I’m working. First off, gym will have to take a backseat. That’s a big boo-hoo but I’m sure we’ll find a way to get around that. In the mornings, after I drop Raine off at her college, I’ll head straight to my college and when I’m done with my classes, I’ll head back over to hers to pick her up.

Meantime, Skye, my feisty 15-year-old, will be manning the kitchen for me. She’s in charge of cooking us lunch, well, until she runs out of recipes, so she says, but I’ll make sure she doesn’t . And I’m all set. Stay tuned for more stories from the work front. Here we go… !

College is a whole new experience for Raine. There’s such a lot going on on campus that there’s rarely a dull moment. Tests, assignments and cramming aside, there are the weekly happenings in the student area where there are booths promoting everything from Starbucks coffee to accessories for ipod.

But for Raine, nothing beats the fact that she gets to plan her own class schedules in college. Not only does she get to decide which classes to take but also the time and day. You� know what else is neat? She schedules her classes around our gym time so she can get in there with me in the mornings. She is loving her 4-day weeks, I tell ya.

I can so smell it in the air and feel it in my bones. If you read my tweets, you might’ve heard me say a little craziness is okay but I ended up getting a boatload of it.

It’s the first day of the fall semester for Raine. She only has a 2-hour class and she’s done for the day. So we’re off battling rush hour traffic first thing this morning. We needed to get to college early so she could locate the classroom.

So I drop her off, she manages to locate her classroom and I’m ~~happily~~ on my way home, right? Not so fast! I’m almost home after an hour of inching along in barely moving traffic, my foot numb from hitting the brakes 500 times per minute, and Raine calls me to say… class has been cancelled!

You gotta be kiddin’ me, right? On the first day of school? Well, if you’ve been a mom of 3 for this many school years, you know nothing surprises you anymore. So what else is there to do but to turn around and go back?! Duh! Two whole hours wasted!

The rest of the morning was spent answering questions about the bags we lost flying from Tokyo to San Francisco oh so long ago. No, I do not have those boarding passes, but if and when I do decide to start a collection, I promise you’ll be the first to know .

Because of that, I started lunch late. Dumped the scalloped potatoes in the oven, went out to pick Skye from school, and happily thought we could get down to gobbling lunch right away. But the potatoes weren’t cooked through and had to go right back into the oven while our tummies did cartwheels and drumrolls!

Like the weather, the rest of the afternoon took a turn for the worst when I realized I had to deal with a bunch of unreasonable women (think I’ve mentioned them here before). Yes, the same ones you can’t knock any sense into if you talked yourself blue. I’ll spare you the gory details.

So now I’m home, showered for the third time today. My freshly shampooed hair smells so good. Can’t wait to work some of this stress off tomorrow at the gym. Hope you’re enjoying your Monday/first day of school. Right now, I’m all for happy tales of Monday so please humor me if you’ve got any to share .

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Friday evenings are quite a big doo-dah for us these days. I signed Skye up for Math tutoring for these next couple of months. It’s just to give her more confidence with topics that are haphazardly covered at school.

Late Friday evenings are definitely not the best time to be out if you want to keep your stress level down. But we don’t have a choice as this is the only time schedule available and we like that this tutor explains very well, teaches a structured approach to dealing with questions and doesn’t spoon-feed the kids.

So Friday evenings it is! Granted it’s the hottest time of day when the setting sun is making one last attempt to grill us all to a crisp before calling it a day. Not to mention that driving down the highway with the setting sun directly in my eyes isn’t exactly fun either. So my sun shades are down and my new pair of Ray Bans are on.

The only thing left then is that horrendous Friday evening rush hour traffic. I used to drop Skye off, then head on home, and pick her up later. But it’s gotten to the point where if I do that, I would have to leave again the minute I reach home, which makes no sense whatsoever!

So these days, Raine (who usually comes along for the ride) and I head to the club instead after we drop Skye off. The club is halfway between our home and the tutor’s. So we’re saving time and stress by hanging out at the club’s library till it’s time to pick up Skye.

But not on rainy Fridays though because then, even that shorter distance is undoable. We’ve had to make a U-turn before we even reached the club or we wouldn’t have enough time to go back and pick up Skye. That’s how bad it can get!

So guess what Raine and I did today? We saw how bad traffic was and decided we weren’t going anywhere. We would just camp out in the car outside the tutor’s home with our jar of chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of iced water. Our picnic on a Friday evening!