I came, I saw, they conquered! Today was my first day as a substitute teacher. Omigod. What have I done?

Actually it wasn쳌ft too bad. But the class room does not have air conditioning! It gets HOT! The kids droop like wilting flowers in the heat. The paper sticks to their hands and the table tops.

In the first period there is a special needs kid. He doesn쳌ft pay attention, doesn쳌ft want to learn and when you check his work he pretends to work hard but does nothing. I see him as a future president. Another boy watches me out of the corner of his eye and becomes very busy when I look at him. Definitely VP material.

Things got a little confusing in the afternoon. They ran out of work to do and we settled into some serious babysitting, i.e., herding cats. The cell phones came out to play. It was awful. I realized this evening that I had only assigned half the work the teacher left for them to do in the first period. Oops!

Tomorrow is a brand new day. They shouldn쳌ft run out of work. I have gone over the lesson plan and I think I see what the teacher intended. Plus we have to make up the work from today. If the cell phones appear I think I will invite them to join me in the front of the classroom where they can wait patiently for their owners. The same for the MP3 players and iPods. Kids have too much.

Wakana came home from her first day as a coordinator. Previously she has been working as an assistant. Today she ran the show. She is quite proud of herself. She was complimented by the supervisor for doing a good job. That was good for her to hear.

She has succeeded in making another father cry. I think she쳌fs keeping count and working on a scoring system. Today쳌fs father of the bride was nervous about his role in the wedding. Wakana told him about her trip down the aisle (or, as the Japanese call it, the Virgin Road). She talked about walking with her father and thanking him for taking care of her. He replied that he hoped she would be happy. When she finished her story he was mopping at his eyes. She쳌fs quite proud of that too.