My Last First Day

Thank God I woke up feeling a lot better today.   (This in spite of a dream about walking down the street and observing block to block the planting of trees and piling of poop.  There was a homeless man with his possessions beside him as he slept and very neatly piled poop on the other side of him.  I got to my own yard and pondered the best place for tree and poop, but then I saw that a (my?) dog had already created his own pile in the shadow of a tree.  I pondered whether I should redirect him.)

As I was saying...I woke up feeling a lot better today.  I read the newspaper and looked for articles that pertained to our unit on the media or related to other units in NorthStar 4 Reading and Writing.   I found an update on the Jahi McMath case to contrast to the Hermanson's case denying medical help,   “Dolphin mom-to-be vocalizing to baby in womb for unit on animal intelligence, and an article about  Audie Pott, the 15 year old who killed herself after photos of her alleged sexual assault were texted to classmates.   I organized my gradebook for today's classes--put the first-day handout in my gradebook, pasted the class list into my gradebook, got things sorted out and packed.  Mailed the cards to Nicole and Beth on my way to school.  Went to Duplicating, where I mis-identified a letter-size ream of paper just because it was facing lengthwise.  Made 37 copies of my bio for ESL 140 so they can ask questions about what's NOT in the bio.  Classes went well.  I saw Bob Irwin before class, and he pointed out that this would be my last first day!  Tiny ESL 140  MWF 8:10-10:00 class with Joseph form Saudi Arabia, Dan Kim from South Korea, John from China, Ihar from Belaruz, and Ewa from Poland.  But it was so satisfying to have such individual contact.  Larger (but not packed, no one waiting to add in spite of the waiting list—only 17 there) ESL 142.  Students I had in ESL 132 are Ihar, Ewa, Jingli, Julia, and Dinh.We have students from Belarus,, China, El Salvador, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland and Vietnam.  

Now, before I organize all I collected today, I'm going to go out to do some unfinished CCSF outreach--at the Youth Justice Institute (YJI) Mentoring Program at 375 Woodside Avenue, Buildings W1 and W2.  I might go back to one more of the three offices at the Richmond Community Center too.  That will complete my vacation outreach work, which took me to book stores all over the city and to community-based organizations--acquainting me with parts of the city I didn't know well or at least centers I didn't know.

Oh, later I should talk about the errors I had on handouts.  The most egregious was the one on dates they were supposed to copy onto the Week 1, 2, 3, etc. on that back of their white info cards!