Happy Birthday Craig! I miss you kiddo.

I feel like all I do is work. I get up and and get ready for work. Then I go to work. Then I come home (exhausted) and go to bed so I can get up in time for work. It's not really a bad thing though. After living an unscheduled existence for so long, it's really nice to know what every day will look like. It's refreshing in it's predictability. I guess that's what makes monks become monks. Today I will sit in a cave and eat rice. I will chant and I will meditate and I will sleep. And then I will do it another 29,200 times before I die.

Every day I teach roughly 90 kids. They range in age from about five to 13 or 14. I teach some classes Monday, Wednesday and Friday and other classes on Tuesday and Thursday. I have one class, my preschool class, who I teach everyday. For obvious reasons they are my favorite. They are Hans, Brian, Hoya, Mark and Leo. Hans looks like a mini-Korean version of Don Johnson (circa Miami Vice) with spiked hair and a single gold hoop in his ear. Keep in mind this kid is five. Hoya looks Hawaiian for some reason and is the youngest. Let's just say she's not the smallest or the brightest. She just looks at you with these vacant eyes and every time you ask her a question she responds with "ugly duckling". Apparently that book really influenced her life. Brian is the little joker and he wears a tie everyday. Over his t-shirt. He does this little dance where he sticks out his tongue and wiggles his bum. It's hilarious. Mark is the goody-two shoes and Leo is the nice, sweet kid. Leo is the "cool" kid. He is funny and cute and athletic.They are great.

So I discovered something about myself the other day that came as quite a shock because it goes against everything I thought I knew about myself. I am not a dreamer. I'm a dreamer in many senses of the word but in this particular way I am not. Brian always says things like "Have you ever thought what it would be like to be a rock star/in the NBA/a millionaire"? The answer is usually no. If I imagine doing something I then proceed to figure out what I need to do to accomplish said dream. I have never dreamt of being something, realized it wouldn't happen and then kept on going. (Okay, a couple of times when I was younger I imagined what it would be like to have no legs and so I dragged myself around the house for a whole day, but that's a different kind of dream isn't?) Brian said it was sad. I felt shocked that at 26 I could be confronted with something so novel about myself. Is it sad? I don't know. I think about what it would be like to be a scientist so I do it. I imagined being a journalist so I did it. I have imagined being a doctor and I didn't do it so I consider myself a failure in that regard. I am not a successful journalism grad...I am a failed egyptologist, a failed simian research specialist, a failed actress and doctor and teacher (oh wait -I am doing that now) and a failed politician. Sheesh. What am I going to do about this exactly?