The biggest things to happen to me this week

Like the time I had a conversation on the street with a homeless buddy about the temperature of his butthole (I posted about that, remember?) I continue to ask myself if this really is my life.

My last day at school is June 22, and I’m already starting to get sad and nostalgic about leaving my first graders. If you had told me when I started working at this elementary school that I’d get so attached, I would have laughed. “To THOSE bratty kids?!” I would have said incredulously. “I have not seen so much attitude in one place since my apartment in UP!”

But now I know that I’m going to miss their excited little faces and shouts of “ABBY!!” when I walk into the room, and I’ll really miss their little hugs around my waist and their constant questions (What are those spots on you? Are you going to afterschool today? Is “hecka” a bad word? Why do you always chew gum? Can I have some gum?) Gosh, they’re so darn CUTE!

One of the second grade classrooms put on a fashion show/Star Wars production last week, so I took them out to one of the portables and we sat down to watch. We were a little late and all the other classes were watching the show quietly until MY kids got there. One of my little boys looked at me and yelled at the top of his lungs, “CAN I GO TO THE BATHROOM? I GOTTA USE IT!” So we had to have a short talk about how we ask for things like that, and then I let him go.

I have to admit, though, that I won’t miss doing math with them and hearing them call me fifty times in a minute. Really, I have never been so sick of my own name.

But it makes me sad to think that I’ll be out of their lives forever; I will probably never see any of these kids again or know how they turn out. I’m leaving them in their own little worlds where their dads are in jail and their moms have run off and 50 Cent is in charge. I will be offering them up to the gods of the inner city, and I can only pray that my short time with them has done some sort of good as I let them loose in this crazy world, to be influenced by their peers and their eternal baby sitter, cable TV.

In other news, foot washing at the clinic is still going pretty well. I actually had a homeless man pretty close to proposing to me, I think, which is a big accomplishment for me (I usually leave all that stuff to Ruth). I guess I was just having a good pheromone day, because I got kissed by quite a few men that day. Well, two. And one is an older gentleman whose feet I usually get to work on, and he kisses me all the time. The other was a Latin American gentleman who tried to teach my roommates and me to salsa. I was kind of surprised. Do you think if I was more ethnic/exotic looking I could go around kissing whoever I want? It's an interesting idea, I think. Too bad those red-headed, blue-eyed Irish aren't known for being overly affectionate in public.

I will spend my summer at the clinic, working at our church’s week-long summer camp and as a “short-term missionary” at a camp called Joni and Friends (as in Joni Eareckson Tada) caring for a disabled child or adult for a week to give his/her full-time caregiving family a little break. Should be interesting!