In both Delaware and Chicago, gardenias are houseplants that you buy in small pots in the grocery store to give as Mothers' Day gifts, so it completely threw me when I noticed familiar-looking flowers on this giant bush. The landscapers recently were out pruning mindlessly with loud electric hedge-trimmers, so it's not exactly flowering profusely, but given as the bush is behind my porch and not near anybody else's apartment, I had no qualms about cutting one of the few flowers I did see.
Gardenias smell so incredible, and nobody's going to enjoy it out in the parking lot. Now my bathroom smells lovely. (See the charming bud vase? Formerly a flask from a hospital lab, courtesy of my mom.) I should probably clean the rust off the overflow drain - that looks kind of dingy.
In teaching-related news, I've been schlepping off to the Marriott every morning for the past week for more TFA training/Kool Aid drinking (I'm swimming in it these days)/planning for my class that I start teaching in THREE WEEKS! I stopped by my school yesterday to scrounge up a text book, and was able to talk to the woman there who does scheduling. She told me that for all three blocks I'm teaching, I'd be working with an '09 Corps Member who teaches Civics & Econ inclusion. (Inclusion is just the way they teach the Special Ed kids who aren't so severely disabled they need their own class. They're "included" in the normal class, and the whole class is then taught by a classroom teacher and a special ed teacher who work together.) I'm really excited about this because my co-teacher, Cliff, taught this class last year, and so has a much better sense than I do of what works and what doesn't. Plus, having a co-teacher means I won't have to struggle on my own to differentiate for kids at different levels while trying to teach the rest of the students. Plus, he's already done a lot of planning for our class, so it's just going to be a matter of getting together and getting on the same page. Plus, he's been at the school for a year so he knows who can help with what, who's in charge of what, and all that other stuff that you get to know after working at a school but can't possibly know when you're brand new.
Tonight I have a dinner scheduled with some TFA donors who live just down the road. TFA has scheduled all of us to go to a couple of these dinners as part of their development campaign. Basically, we get a free meal in return for putting a friendly face on the organization they give money to. Although I'm not the most naturally outgoing person ever, I really kind of enjoy getting to know strangers in smaller settings like this, so it should be fun. Plus there are a couple other corps members going too, so it's not just me and the donors. I was planning on walking, but it has suddenly started thunderstorming (the weather here goes from sunny to monsoon in about 20 seconds) so that might not work out. I did walk to Ben & Jerry's though (3 minutes away) and got a black raspberry frozen yogurt. I don't know what possessed me to get the 'healthy' option - real ice cream is way better. Next time it's back to something with plenty of fat in it.Free xml sitemap generator
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