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| Maya on a very cold day at Beech Mountain |
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| Our ski cabin |
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| Cone |
It “snowed” recently in Atlanta. Students were incredibly distracted
by the flurries and kept asking if it was still snowing as they tried to peak
through the window blinds in the class. It was very hard to get everyone to sit
down and continue with the lesson. Coming from Vermont this was crazy to me as
it flurries all the time and while yes it’s pretty to look at snow, it’s
nothing that really we would think twice about.
This experience reminded me of being in Uganda and working
at Fenix out of the Kampala office where our office compound frequently received
monkey visitors. Any time a monkey came (and usually it was monkeys, a whole troop of them) I had to drop
everything to watch these fascinating creatures interact. The African
co-workers though, like me in my Atlanta classroom when it snows, had zero
interest. If anything they found the monkeys to be a nuisance and tried to shoe
them away. I guess whatever you are used to makes these types of experience
more or less special.
We are well into our 2nd semester and it’s been a
busy, I would say even busier, semester than last. Between the gifted program,
wedding planning, the Strolling Bones (my band), and having two preps. for the
first time in my teaching career (French 1 & 3) my hands are pretty full.
But the work is good and mostly interesting and I prefer being busy. In
addition, a few weeks ago I became the JV boy’s tennis coach when the local
pro. fell through last minute. It’s been a lot of fun but also a big time
commitment. I think I was more nervous than the kids were for our first match
but we fortunately we just squeaked out a win and came out on top 3-2. The
level of tennis is also soooo much higher than what it was at CVU. These guys
could definitely have taken on our varsity team back home. We didn’t have a JV
team and I had to cut over 10 players which was very hard. ATL is a big tennis
city and all of the parents also place. As with everything these days I seem to
be learning how to do things on the run. But the difference this year continues
to be so huge that I can barely remember trying to start (and then failing) the
Hapeville soccer teams, and in the end, clubs. The Booster club for tennis has
amazing parents that cook, carpool, provide me DHS tennis clothing, coordinate communication,
and even book the local tennis courts where we play. Plus, I get a decent chunk
of change for a pretty short season. It’s not a bad deal.
We finally made it to our winter break, which has been
pretty cool since last year in Fulton County we didn’t even get this break (or
maybe got one day?). A few of my new friends from the Dunwoody teaching domain
came with us (see pics below). I didn’t even know there was skiing in the South
until moving down here. It was no Vermont skiing but it wasn’t horrible. It was
a step up from Wachusett in Massachusetts and maybe a step down from Bolton
Valley in Vermont.
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| A pensive pose at the ski cabin |
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Time Square before Book of Mormon February '16
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