a tired teacher at the end of a long week

it's 9pm and i am so tired i am contemplating a very early night, and taping gilmore girls and men in trees. nearly unheard of in the michiverse!

i have been teaching a new group since monday - or rather, half a new group, since six students were in my previous class, too. it's been going really well. we have played games, the "old" and "new" ones have had a chance to get to know each other, we have done an england quiz, have read and watched a documentary about stonehenge, we have found out about london tourist attractions, planned weekend trips to london, and today my hard-working dozen produced a mini-tourist guide for london: 12 tourist attractions, 6 hotels, 6 musicals. the afternoon classes are less fun, a lot more exhausting, but at least rather well paid.

now, after ten weeks at this workplace (and it's HUUUUUUGE), i really feel like i belong, i know quite a few colleagues, and there are some lovely girls and guys. and of course i still enjoy the lunchtime-chats with nathan, though there aren't as many as there used to be, because of my busy schedule.

i've spent all week frantically trying to make up for the hours i lost on saturday, which meant very late nights. seriously late nights. barely any time for relaxing. monday was awful in that i could not stop thinking about sepp's news, not even for a second. i felt panicky most of the day, and thought i was going to go crazy. i am still angry and hurt, and my hands have felt numb several times, today after work i got a bit panicky on the bus - not sure if it was just because i have worked so much, not slept enough and was tired, or if it's got to do with the bad news i've had.

speaking of which - my granny is actually doing better than expected. thank you and big hugs to everyone who sent notes to tell me you cared.

and here is one thing that cheered me up this week, a photo of gudrun's son simon aka froggy:



song of the day: wigwam by bob dylan.

more bad news

... since i seem to need those on a regular basis.

my mom rang me today while i was teaching, and since she knows my schedule for february, i knew it had to be important. my granny (90) collapsed on the weekend and was taken to hospital. she's been very confused these last few days, mom said that she'd tried to disconnect all sorts of tubes, and today she got up on her own and walked around (which she was not supposed to do) and fell, possibly because she got dizzy, and she fractured her femoral neck. she was being operated on at the time mom called me. she said that before the operation granny had just gone on about the pain she was in, and that she did not want to live anymore, she did not want to go on anymore. so it's not looking good.

and the weird thing is that - just as with the news of saturday - i had a premonition or whatever, a kind of vision, for lack of a better word, a while ago: me picking up the phone in a classroom and mom telling me something very similar to today's news.

i managed to finish teaching alright, but now, at home, i am just totally subdued and sad. too many goodbyes already, of late. sometimes i almost wish i believed in god. i guess i would pray for what's best for my granny, not anything that's selfish.

song of the day: the light will stay on by the walkabouts.