first week; first date

I think I’ll write about the date I had last night first, even though it is probably less important that my first week of school. If I save the juicy stuff until the end I’m afraid my dear readers will just skim through everything else.
Yesterday I was driving home from Happy Hour in Multnomah Village (my class has decided to make it a weekly ritual, god bless them) when I got a phone call. Hmm. Unfamilliar Portland number. Thinking it was a classmate needing a ride or assignment, I answered. But it was not a classmate, my friends, oh no. It was the cute boy I formed a crush on at the One Minute Film Fest last weekend! I know! What a surprise, right? He got my phone number from Adam P., who is his coworker at the coffee shop. And then he called me! And we had a nice talk! And then he asked what I was doing later! And we decided to have a date! Oh, the dreamy excitement!
I rushed home and took a shower (lately my natural deoderant has not been doing the trick). Promptly at 7 (god I love a prompt man) he biked up to my house. Just as cute as I remembered. So nice. I gave him the nervous tour of mi casa, making dumb jokes and shrugging a lot. Then we biked over to a nearbly brewery (I think)/bar. We sat outside. We drank beer. The San Antonio/Detroit game was on, so we went in and watched the last quarter. Then we were tipsy and hungry so we hit the Mississippi Pizza pub. We ate a slice. We biked back to my house. We sat on my porch and talked about gentrification. I was so, so sleepy, but didn’t want the date to end. Eventually it did, with a sweet hug and an agreement to talk again this weekend. Al Johnson (this is the pseudonym he requested- I’ll refer to him as AJ for short) is very nice. He is polite. He is smart. He is considerate. He likes movies that I like, and we discovered that we often go to the same shows. I think I will see him again.
Okay- graduate school. My goodness! It’s only the first week and I already feel like I am behind. It’s a one year program, so everything moves really fast. We have 1-6 hours of reading a night, and we journal on every book/article/experience/thought/idea/bowel movement/whatever. I really enjoy reading and writing (as you well know), so it’s not difficult to do the work, it’s just hard to stay on top of everything all at once.
My cohort (the group of 20 students who I take every class with) is really diverse and interesting. There are 18 women and two men. About half of us are in our mid-twenties, and the other half are older- many of them embarking on teaching as a second or third career. I feel humbled by my classmates. Everyone in the group shows such amazing passion and commitment. The range of international and cross-cultural experiences we exhibit is remarkable. I mean, I thought I was tough shit having lived in Dublin on my own until Victoria told us about spending a year in South Africa during the Mandela elections when she was 17 YEARS OLD!! And Crista worked in Guatamala, Carlie in Korea… the list goes on. When we have group discussions it seems like nearly every comment is valuable and on-topic. It’s such a change from undergraduate classes, when half the students always seemed to be just sliding by (myself often included). There are definately some strong personalities in the cohort. I’m sure that by the end of next year certain people will drive me up the wall. But for now everyone is friends, and the vibe is warm and appreciative.
Today I visited the site of my summer internship. I will be assisting at a school for the children of migrant workers in a rural district near Portland. My day will start at 8 am (!), with an hour commute each way. Ugh. I hate being up that early. The program is really cool though. It is mandated by law that students whose parents are identified as migrant (meaning they move from district to district based on agriculture or fishery) recieve special services. These include tutoring during the school year, summer school (which is where I will be helping), and emergency insurance. This is great, except that all of these programs are poorly funded. In the last year summer school lost about $58,000 in funding. But the teachers are making do with what they have, and we interns will hopefully be more help than burden for them. I met my mentor this morning. His name is Haver (pronounced Ever), and he has a great sense of humor, and a really warm demeanor. We will be teaching a 3rd grade curriculum.
****NEWS FLASH!!!**** I just got a call from AJ. He read my blog for the first time today and isn’t too creeped out. We made a date for Sunday afternoon. I assured him that after the initial first-date description I won’t blog about him so much. Just a mention here and there maybe. I feel like I’m getting better about the public/private respect issue.
And finally, happily, I would like to announce that my BLOG WILL BE MOVING this weekend. I have recieved the great honor of being invited to join the EXCLUSIVE blogging community that is Urban Honking. I am just thrilled. Switching to UrHo means that I will get more design choices, a greater readership, more control over who can read/comment on my blog (you know what I mean), and also just get to be a member of a rad online community. My new address will be urbanhonking.com/perfect. Don’t worry, I’ll leave this blog up with a link to the new one until everyone gets adjusted. And I will move my links and archives as well.
Okay. That was quite an update. The end.
xoxo
Willow Wonder