So I'm on the phone right now with Professor MF. She's trying to install her PC camera and it isn't working. Mine is, hence the picture in the top left.
Ivisit worked swell for me, but I couldn't get the microphone and headphones.
She (Prof MF) is out in her car right now getting another webcam.
I am sitting in our "classroom" waiting for her. It's a blast. So I figure while she's futzing around, I'll do a quick entry...
In reference to yesterday's dream house entry, I've gotten some nice email from people listing out the things they are looking for. And I owe Web Apologies to Tess. Many of you may think that I was grousing over the fact that Alaska has broadband and I don't. Tess does live in a big city -- much bigger than my podunk little town. It isn't like she's out in East Nanook or something. So I want to dispel for you the myth that I may have painted -- that Tess is in some sort of log cabin with spiders and broadband. She's in a coolassed town with construction workers tying up traffic on her, just as if you were on the Long Island Expressway.
This morning I could only find one of Geoff's shoes.
I have no fricking clue where shoe two is. There is no evidence of dog chewing -- no sign that it existed at all. And I think Doug has his sandals in the other car. So Geoff was stuck and shoeless this morning. I threw him in the car to rush over to the nearest cheap, erm, inexpensive, shoe store to grab a pair of sneakers.
But they didn't open until 10am. I knocked on the window. The sales girl was in there drinking coffee with her boyfriend. They motioned to me to go away until 10am. I lifted Geoff up and showed her his bare feet.
She opened the door, it was 9:25. I explained my predicament and told her "I'll give you 20 dollars for a pair of size 13 1/2 kid sneakers."
She opened the door and let us in, and told us that we didn't have to do that.
We were in and out of there in 5 minutes. I tried to tip her -- give her extra money. She refused. She made change for my 20 with her own money and took the sticker off the box so she could scan it.
Her boyfriend was in the back and all grinny. I think he was proud of her.
I thanked her profusely, told her she was my hero. I hope that our early morning emergency is the hardest thing she has to face all day, all month for that matter. What a gem. Super gal!
So there are nice people out there. Once in a while I forget.
Meanwhile, back in PC camera land...
I'm being as nice as I can and trying my best to get the whole camera thing going for MF... it isn't working. She's giving up on her home PC. So hopefully the shoe thing is good karma balance for me. Tomorrow is the class and I am going to walk students through the installation of the web cams on their own computers and show them how to use ivisit (worse yet, right now ivisit is not working. This could be doomed from the start)...
I got another nice email the other day from a good friend who has this to say about back to schoolness (I'll leave her anonymous):
In light of all of the back-to-schoolness happening around me, I have a personal memory I would like to share with you about my first day of school and kindergarten in general:
My parents had moved to a small, rural town called (x) when I was 4 and ready to start school. The town had a large Christian school and my parents wanted us to go there. On my first day of school, September 1972, my mom dressed me up in a cute little red, white and blue sleeveless mini-dress and gave me a bunch of marigolds for my teacher.
No less august and terrifying person than Miss Predmore herself, the principal, met me outside the school and walked me down to my class where I was the only girl and the only kid who hadn't seen the eggs hatch in preschool the year before.
My mom should have just tattooed "loser" on my forehead.
I was an incredibly small and shy four year old and at times was too terrified to come out of the coatroom because Steve Rush was standing in the way; he was such a huge kid, I couldn't bring myself walk past him.
Years later, I found out that my mother was spoken to by Miss Predmore for what I was wearing that day - a sleeveless dress. Very inappropriate for a Mennonite school, my mother being one of those color-wearing, non-head covering, Presbyterians had no clue and was horribly embarrassed.
One of my favorite memories of kindergarten is of my very pretty teacher, Miss Black. She would settle us down by telling all of us to put our heads down on our desks, which were in a circle and she would sing the twenty third psalm to us softly and gently pat each little head as she passed by. It was so peaceful.
This made me smile. Kindergarten is so nice and so special. The fear, the kids, the new experiences, the teacher -- usually the most wonderful person ever.
I wonder what Geoff is going to take away memory-wise from his experience. I should ask Jessica what she remembers.
Me? I don't remember much. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Spor, and she was very nice. I remember meeting a black boy -- Matthew S., and I can't remember his last name or locate him in my yearbook.
He was the first black person I ever met.
He was adopted by an older couple, I remember his mom being so cute and grey haired and smiley. She was a hip Jewish lady, so 70s in her stylin' and so friendly. They lived around the corner from the school and two or three houses up from a girl who would later become a very very good friend of mine through my academic experience, Eva.
Someone told me he wore diapers. I don't know if that is true or not. Today it isn't that big a stigma for boys to still be in pullups at 5, or so I'm told. I know people who tell me their son's 8 or 9 year old friends wear pullups to bed at night and it just baffles me. In 1970 though... no one wore diapers if they were in school.
I remember him being small and shy and wearing corduroys and a striped shirt. I remember the kid Danny who lived directly across the street from the school, his dad was a politician of some sort. My mom might remember their last name.
I remember I had slammed my finger in a window either right before or right after school started. I lost a fingernail. I showed Mrs. Spor, and she turned white.
I remember Mare, who I've been friends with ever since... she came to visit me in March from California. I remember Sean, the cute little blonde who would call me and read me poetry on the phone and make me giggle like a freak.
I don't remember much else from Kindergarten.
I do however remember third grade, where a girl named Carmen called me "40 foot forehead" one day when I had grown my bangs out and had my hair in ponytails. I was crushed. Looking back, that's pretty damn clever for a third grader... but she embarrassed me in front of a girl named Tracy, who I adored and wanted to be best friends with forever.
This all is leading somewhere -- recently, Linda and her housemate Virginia were talking about people from "back home" up in "the Station" as we call it. And Virginia wondered what ever happened to Carmen's mom, Dee.
Dee was large and in charge, a formidable black mamma who had all us little chicks under her care at school. She would wait at the bus stop. She was in love with my sister -- all small and blonde and cute as she was.
A few days after their shared reminiscing about Dee, Carmen, and "the Station, y'all" Virginia is at the grocery store and she hears this voice behind her commenting on the price of something. Virginia, ever so social, turns round and concurs. Then, she asks the woman if she's from New York...
"I'm from Brooklyn," the woman says. Virginia says "Oh, you sounded familiar, like someone I knew from home."
The two of them talk for a minute or two, and come to the conclusion they do know each other.
It was Carmen.
The one who called my fat mousy blonde self "40 foot forehead" back in the day. Holy crap. So they talk for a while, Carmen asks after us and Virginia asks after Dee. They trade contact info...
A few days later the phone at their house rings -- and it's Dee.
The mamma callin' her babies.
Linda and Virginia had a good chat with her, and it's still so funny to me that their little conversation about Dee had just happened a day or so earlier. Linda says Virginia has a canny ability to bring someone up in conversation and they (or someone who knows them) pops into view a day or so later.
Does that happen to you?
