Dance, Monkey, Dance!

Last night was Back to School Night here at school, which is a big ball of stress and Xeroxing but is also (I hate to admit this) a lot of fun. I mean, think about it: a captive audience, enclosed in a classroom, wedged into hard plastic chairs, with no recourse but to listen to me talk about curriculum for ten whole minutes. It's the performance to end all performances, and I get to do it every year! Yay!

I left school around three, returned home, and walked Q, checked e-mail, finished the fourth book of Fables (another great reading suggestion from Jess), and primped like crazy. I have to be very careful at BTSN: because I still get mistaken for a student every once in a while (honestly, I've been working at this school for six years, and there isn't a year that goes by without someone asking me for my hall pass), I feel like I have to put special effort into looking older. So that means makeup and curlers and the most suit-like clothes I own.

I returned to school around six-- okay, so there are also not-so-fun parts to BTSN-- and joined my fellow department members in our department workroom. Um, you honestly think I'm going to sit in my room while parents wander the halls, skipping the PTA meeting to catch teachers one-on-one? Hell no. We English teachers sit in our workroom and get ourselves ready to face the masses by laughing hysterically at things we wouldn't normally find funny. (This is a result of a combination of exhaustion and nerves.)

Anyway, I've never had any problems with parents at BTSN; I get up in front of the room, do my trained monkey dance (or, as Christine likes to call it, our "dog and pony show"), and leave as soon as the last parent of the night disappears out the door. Parents tend to like me because, if nothing else, I am wildly enthusiastic about what I teach. And because I know their students' names already.

And because, honestly, I do a great monkey dance.