…of progress reports and early morning conferences, of toothaches and of scabies. No, really, I mean it…why else do you think I’ve been gone so long, but if you want to read the full version of Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter before continuing here, do feel free, it’s a good poem and the Alice books are a great read, even as an adult.

But anyway, on to the reasons why I have been so quiet lately. My time here in the U.S. is quickly approaching it’s end. CB asked me tonight how I felt about the whole thing. I answered him with an honest: “I dunno.” Because I really don’t know. This is the first time I’ve ever immigrated, after all. Heck, who am I kidding, this is the first time I’ve lived outside of a 50 mile radius of my hometown. It’s also the first time I’ll ever be living with a man (well, in a romantic way). Add those factors in with the whole I’M MOVING TO FRIGGING BELGIUM IN TEN DAYS thing and well, I honestly don’t know how I feel. I know my mom is crying a lot lately and my dad seems to be letting me get away with being pretty lazy as far as chores go. My brother and I have had more quality time (a movie one night and dinner another) in the past two months than we’ve had in the past two years. I know that I’m sort of nervous and scared, mostly about the language thing and somewhat about the riding bike in traffic thing. I know that my stomach has been in several stages of upheaval for the past couple weeks and that I’ve felt oddly displaced since about Thanksgiving time, an immigrant in limbo, if you will.

Part of this whole process is also leaving my job at CHCC and therefore leaving my kids. Leaving them might not be so hard if I hadn’t been their teacher for almost 2 whole years. That sort of thing rarely happens and I count myself lucky to have had the opportunity to watch this group grow for as long as I have and to be a part of it all, rather than just an onlooker from the toddler side of the hall. So many of these children have come to me crying or laughing or sleepy or silly. They call me “mom” by accident almost as much as they call me Korie. I know where they got the scars on their knees. I know their shoes, their blankies, their special naptime toys. I saw Sit Here’s eyes light up two days ago because he drew his symbol all by himself for the very first time. He was so proud! My heart swelled up at the joy on his face.

In less than two weeks that will all be a memory. No more hugs around my legs when I walk into the room at 8 in the morning. No more reading books while little people crowd around me, mouths agape, hanging on every word of my story. No more holding hands, kissing boo boos, cuddling at nap time. I think the lack of contact with children is going to be what hurts me the most in all of this.

Anyway (dang, this is getting long…sorry Carrie) part of my responsibilities as a teacher is to have bi annual conferences with the parents of the kids in my group to review developmental benchmarks, progress, red flags, suggestions, concerns, etc. I decided to be a dictatorial bitch this year (due to two prior years of being forgotten for scheduled conferences on numerous occasions) and limit my availability to 7:30 in the morning and 2:00 in the afternoon. I figured 4 of the 6 kids in my group are part timers, which means at least one parent has some days off of work, which means they could come in at 2:00.

Wrong.

Almost everyone signed up for a 7:30 slot and now that I live with my parents and have rush hour traffic to contend with, it means that I have to get up at 5:00 just to be sure I get to work by 7:30 for my conferences. I also managed to procrastinate on filling out the written report that I review with the parents containing individualized observations and anecdotes dating from the first week of September until now.

Guess who was up till 2:00 in the morning every day this week writing reports for meetings that were happening at 7:30 that very morning?

It’s been a long time since I had to function for a whole week with a total of 12 hours of sleep, but there you have it. And I proved that even at 26 I can give it the good ol’ college try and still pull great work out of nowhere at the buttcrack of dawn. However, that took up much of my bloging time.

Oh and there’s the matter of my jaw, which has been cursed with throbbing pain ever since I drank the cold milk this morning that was supposed to coat my stomach and fend off the river of fresh acid that my stomach has been launching up my esophagus for the past several days. Ended up playing phone tag with my dentist all day but was able to snag a spot tomorrow morning for a quick check on my teeth to make sure nothing is going to rot and fall out.

And then, there was scabies.

Yes, you heard me right, my classroom, I found out today, has had a case of scabies. And guess who has it…that’s right, my shadow, Sit Here. I was actually the one who discovered the nasty rash all over his back. And touched it. And held him all day. And laid down and curled up right beside him to help him to sleep.

Ewewewewewewewewewwwwwwwwwwwwwww

*gagwretchgag*

I spoke to a parent in the room who is a physician and explained how much contact I have with Sit Here every day. She looked at me sympathetically and said, “I can write you a prescription for the lotion to treat it on Tuesday.”

sigh

I’ll keep you all updated within the next 4-6 weeks to let you know how Scabiestorm ‘07 is going. Cause I know you’re all on the edge of your seats to know whether or not your devoted blogger has an infestation of burrowing skin insects.

Yummy.