I have a lot I want to say about Christmas in Idaho, New Year's in Vegas, etc., but who has time for long, juicy descriptive posts? No sir! This blog is just to fill you in on a few happenings of the last 24 hours only. They're not earth-shattering, but the are a bit interesting.
First, school started again yesterday. I was mostly prepared, except for that moment just before second period when I realized I needed a hundred copies that I didn't have, and I needed them in ten minutes, ten minutes in which I was supposed to be teaching. So I improvised. "Since I gave you a test the first day back," I announced, "you can have five minutes to chat about your break and what you got for Christmas!" Then I darted out of the room and down to the copy machine, proud of my teaching prowess. I don't think I was fooling anyone, though.
Additionally, it was cold yesterday, so they turned the heat on at school. Unfortunately, my classroom has no outside walls, and didn't need the heat. I have a thermometer at my desk, and at one point during class yesterday it read 85 degrees. The lowest it got was 78. Ever sat in in hot car with a few bored teenagers for an hour or so? Miserable, yes? Try thirty-five of them.
Yesterday, as I often do, I ensconced myself in a booth of one of my regular coffee shops to grade papers. That's right, I have regular coffee shops, plural. About four or five of them. Why? Because I can't stand to grade papers the same place every day, which is why I'm grading them at coffee shops instead of at home, anyway. I also rotate in some public libraries for variety. I particularly like this coffee shop for two reasons: first, it ran a groupon in which they offered a voucher for 25 cups of coffee for $9. That's about 50 hours worth of grading bribes to myself for only $9! The second reason is that it has a secluded area that is specifically for studying, complete with booths, outlets, and signs requesting quiet. Usually people at these booths are wearing large headphones and have papers and laptops spread out across the tables, and they look intent, serious, and like they wish they could get their coffee in an IV drip because their paper is due tomorrow. But last night one table was taken up by an attractive man who proceeded to have a conversation on speaker phone in the study area, for more than an hour and a half. The table across from him was occupied by a first date. Why, I ask you, would you take your coffee date to sit in the study area? The entire purpose of your going out for coffee was to be able to chat and get to know each other. There are two other rooms in this coffee shop, ones without plain signs asking you to kindly shut up and let us get work done. Why in heaven's name did you choose this one? After an hour or so of listening to their date, every word clearly audible, I had to resist a strong urge to say something to them. At first it was, "I'm sorry to interrupt your conversation, but this is the study area. Could you please move to a different table?" As their date went on however, the things I wanted to say changed to things like, "Excuse me, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. Might I suggest, sir, that after forty-five minutes of talking about yourself, you switch topics?" and "Your discussion about gun control is interesting, even if your arguments are cliche; however, your main argument, which you have repeated at least ten times, has a blatant, glaring hole in it. Let me fix it for you."
Finally, after the first date left, the only sound was the comparative quiet of the ongoing speaker phone conversation. Besides, that wasn't in English, so it wasn't nearly as distracting. When I finally got home, I went to bed nearly immediately. Before snuggling in, however, I added an extra blanket and pulled on knee high wool socks. The thermometer in Zhivie's tub read 60 degrees. My room is on of the coldest in the house, but, being the veteran of many winters of being too cheap to turn up the heat, I am well equipped with wool socks and warm sweats and extra blankets. Before I went to bed I lit some candles and turned on the lava lamp, both of which usually take the chill off of any room long enough to fall asleep.
I woke up around three or four to a strange sound. Zhivie was moving. Her internal clock has switched to winter mode these days, and she hasn't voluntarily come out of her substrate burrow in almost a month. Every few days I dig her out, wake her up, and set her in front of some food. She looks at me resentfully, and then eats some food before returning to sleep. So to wake up to her rooting around in the middle of the night was disconcerting. As I lay there I realized that, lava lamp not withstanding, it was cold in my room. Too cold. My clever tortoise's internal clock had woken her up to tell her to burrow deeper into the ground, where the cold air wouldn't reach. In the wild, a Russian tortoise burrow can reach six feet deep. But Zhivie isn't in the wild. This comes with perks, like daily fresh vegetables, no parasites, no predators, and no being run over by cars, trucks, tanks, etc. However, one major bummer in this case, is that she only gets 8 inches of substrate. No six foot burrow. I dragged myself out of my warm bed and checked the temperature as she scrabbled against the rubber floor of her tub. 50 degrees, rather cold for a cold blooded animal. So I turned on a light and dug out the small space heater my sister had given me for my birthday. When my alarm when off this morning, my room was back up to 60 degrees, and Zhivie had stopped trying to dig to China.
Apparently the heat had gone out in our house last night. I had just assumed it was really cold outside, and that my room with its two outside walls was just unlucky. As I hit snooze repeatedly, I was woken up by Randy, my wonderful, considerate landlord/housemate who's usually never awake before ten. It was six a.m., and he was opening my door to stick in a much better space heater and apologize for the cold.
But don't worry, I won't freeze. It's a balmy 80 degrees in my classroom. Again.
