Why's Everybody Always Act So Tough When All Anybody Ever Wants Is To Find A Friend?
I worked this morning, of course, fulfilling some sub-section Murphy's Law that clearly states the terms of one's late-night drinking and the effects that will follow. Namely, the likelihood that I'd be called in to substitute increased exponentially the longer I stayed up the night before. 3:30 on the second night of a minor drinking binge? Oh yeah, baby. You'll be getting a phone call.
So I threw on something to help me blend in with the commonfolk and hated early morning traffic all the way out to Progress/Scholls area, doing my best to look like I didn't belong until I got to the little brick schoolhouse, at which point I smiled and put on a game face for the Unexpected.
Am I a bad Early Intervention Employee? Let me tell you this. For the first ten minutes I was placed in a class holding three severely disabled children. The teacher noticed a brief sniffling emanating from my direction and asked me if I had a cold. I shrugged. She told me to be very careful, because of the medical issues and how susceptible these kids were. I felt immediately awful. The highest functioning child there staggered zombie-like; eyes glazed and hands grasping vaguely in front of him until something appeared big and or bright enough to call his body into a loose orbit of sorts. All required serious one-on-one attention, but there were about twice as many staff members than children today. Once this fact was realized, they removed me from that room and into.....
...Subbing Utopia.
A class of three adorable children whose only developmental delays were speech related. Their teacher was great(although not entirely helpful in making me feel useful), and after the initial free play time, my role was relegated to pouring juice and walking at the back of their (perfect!) line on the way to the bathroom. During free time, the boy I was hanging out with made me imaginary coffee, but then berated me when I pantomined putting in milk and chocolate. I always admire an early elitist. This class was by far the easiest thing this job has ever thrown at me, even when factoring in my early days packing boxes and making copies. And kids love the specialness of a substitute (Mostly. If they're about 3.)
Which brings me to this. There's a certain inherent awesomeness in the open display of affection with children. They simply lack the facilities to hide their excitement, and new people are pretty much their favoritist things ever. I love that about them. I love the utterly guiless excitement of a child when they like you simply because they have yet to find any reason not to, and you can see them looking over across the room just to check and make sure their new friend is still there. They'll make pretend coffee for you, and bake a pretend chocolate cake. All of your jokes are funny when you're new. They'll sidle up close to your leg and look up in hopes of attention, which, luckily, I'm paid to give them. I wish we could always be like that with recently discovered people, that we didn't have to play it cool and be like...uhh, yeah...whatever..maybe I'll look you up...I'm kind of busy..yeah. Relationshipinal Chess, where you've got to hide your intent.
New Friends Rule.
So I threw on something to help me blend in with the commonfolk and hated early morning traffic all the way out to Progress/Scholls area, doing my best to look like I didn't belong until I got to the little brick schoolhouse, at which point I smiled and put on a game face for the Unexpected.
Am I a bad Early Intervention Employee? Let me tell you this. For the first ten minutes I was placed in a class holding three severely disabled children. The teacher noticed a brief sniffling emanating from my direction and asked me if I had a cold. I shrugged. She told me to be very careful, because of the medical issues and how susceptible these kids were. I felt immediately awful. The highest functioning child there staggered zombie-like; eyes glazed and hands grasping vaguely in front of him until something appeared big and or bright enough to call his body into a loose orbit of sorts. All required serious one-on-one attention, but there were about twice as many staff members than children today. Once this fact was realized, they removed me from that room and into.....
...Subbing Utopia.
A class of three adorable children whose only developmental delays were speech related. Their teacher was great(although not entirely helpful in making me feel useful), and after the initial free play time, my role was relegated to pouring juice and walking at the back of their (perfect!) line on the way to the bathroom. During free time, the boy I was hanging out with made me imaginary coffee, but then berated me when I pantomined putting in milk and chocolate. I always admire an early elitist. This class was by far the easiest thing this job has ever thrown at me, even when factoring in my early days packing boxes and making copies. And kids love the specialness of a substitute (Mostly. If they're about 3.)
Which brings me to this. There's a certain inherent awesomeness in the open display of affection with children. They simply lack the facilities to hide their excitement, and new people are pretty much their favoritist things ever. I love that about them. I love the utterly guiless excitement of a child when they like you simply because they have yet to find any reason not to, and you can see them looking over across the room just to check and make sure their new friend is still there. They'll make pretend coffee for you, and bake a pretend chocolate cake. All of your jokes are funny when you're new. They'll sidle up close to your leg and look up in hopes of attention, which, luckily, I'm paid to give them. I wish we could always be like that with recently discovered people, that we didn't have to play it cool and be like...uhh, yeah...whatever..maybe I'll look you up...I'm kind of busy..yeah. Relationshipinal Chess, where you've got to hide your intent.
New Friends Rule.