first of all, we (the staff) went to "end of cycle," which is like a final night out for everybody before they all go their separate ways for the rest of the summer. in attendance were a couple PCs (the bosses, remember?), tootie, la-rwanda, allie, laverne, shirley, karl, jerome, fred, barney, india, and huey. if there were more, i can't remember at this moment. we went to dave and busters, a nice place. last year we were taken to karaoke. i enjoyed myself because i enjoy all things japanese, but everybody's not as easily satisfied as i'm.
so we're at the dave and busters. they had a little (and i mean little) buffet set up for us. i liked the chicken tenders and ginger ale. i always enjoy a nice gingered ale. it clears the palette. who did NOT show up? stallone, shania, kenan, and kel. do i need to fill in any blanks here? i can't exactly say what they opted to do instead, but...
the war between kel and me is officially over. i've returned to texas, and he's back in hell where he belongs. to say who the winner was is very difficult. for a long time, we were pretty level with each other. i'd do a move on him, then he'd come back with some weirdness that he apparently considered a move of his own. oh yeah, i got dealt with a couple times. the thing about that is...this is my blawg, so whatever gets put up on here has to get my approval. i don't typically approve things that don't kill me the way i want to die. that written, i did win. it wasn't close. the semicolon threw me off for a little bit, but i was able to bounce back. better luck next year, kel, better luck next year. maybe he won't come back next year at all. but considering all the garbage we all had to endure this time 'round, not coming back wouldn't be such a bad thing...
anyway...dave and busters. we all had a pretty good time. racing cars, fruit ninja, horse racing, skee ball, this, that, the other. when it was all over and it was time to go back to our place of residence, there was a slight problem. in my car was india, la-rwanda, and tootie. laverne had asked if she could get a ride, but turns out she already had a ride to there. so her, shirley, and allie didn't have a way back. the way NYSP works, they give you rides to places, but you're on your own from there. they were gonna take a cab, but we said no. why waste money on a taxi when we could all squeeze into my car (a suzuki sx4 crossover...bigger than a mini cooper, but smaller than anything else) like a bunch of mexicans? so we did the impossible, and seven people rode in my car for twenty minutes. i was the only guy, so technically that made me the pimp and them the bitches (but they weren't trippin'). any bumps or corruptions in the road were painful to all. i was so close to the dashboard (as was laverne, who rode shotgun), that even slamming on the brakes would send me right through the windshield. good times.
so we finally made it back, and everybody spilled out like soda when you shake the bottle a little too hard. when we went in, kenan, tia, tamera, shania, stallone, and jerome were all hanging out in one of the rooms. they were having fun. tootie and i went in for a while to hang out and stuff because everyone was leaving the next day to go their separate ways. in addition to them was "marcia," who worked there last year, but decided to do a different track this year (meaning she worked in different locations than us) and another girl i didn't know.
tootie and i didn't stay long because we're old and can't hang like we used to do. those other folks are in their early twenties. tootie is in her late twenties, and i'm thirty-three. those party days are far behind me...far behind me. kel was mysteriously absent. i didn't bother to ask where he was, because i knew that with things being the way they were at that time, in that room, it would have led to world war iii. i didn't want to have to pearl harbor his arse. it wouldn't have been the best way to leave.
we stayed for a while though, tootie and me, and then left. kenan (who shares the same last name as me) was acting strangely as usual. he was doing all that n*gga sh*t like man hug/fist bump/silly hand sh*t that i don't always do. something's wrong with him. kids...
and then...they all went out to a club. it was already close to midnight. i went to put a couple more things in the car to prepare to leave a few hours later. when i came back, i was forced to wait for what looked to be the entire population of saudi arabia. they were all checking in...at midnight. plus...they stank. i don't know what it is about people from over there. deodorant is worldwide. i followed them upstairs with my nose and face twisted. i was downwind from them, after all. on my way up, i passed the gang. they were on their way to the club. they were laughing at the way my face looked. i couldn't help it. i was laughing at kenan, who was very vocal about how it stank. he used every word i could think of to describe them. the thing, though, was that they were still there. they heard every word he was saying. i don't know if they understood it, however. if they didn't, no harm. if they did, who cares? we won't ever see those people again.
i went to take a nap because i was getting up a couple hours later. i had a twenty-one hour drive ahead of me. i left around three in the morning. the gang still had not gotten back, so i left huey a goodbye note. we were very close, him and me. we have similar personalities. i am his son, after all. he called me later when i was on the road to say that they had gotten back and to wish me a safe journey. that huey...he's so nice.
amanda had scared the bejesus out of me with her scary stories of deer in the roads at night. i had never paid any attention to it. she said deer totaled her car before and it was just awful. so imagine my shock when i was driving in the middle of the night, pitch black sky (because in the country there are not any street lights). the little reflector things in the road that keep you in the lanes were moving...it was peculiar. then i was like, sh*t...deer. so i had to slow down from seventy-five to thirty-five for almost twenty miles. it was nerve racking, to say the least. and the most horrifying part was when i was driving and had to literally swerve into another lane because a deer carcass was taking up the entire lane. gross. them sh*ts don't care what's going on at night.
i got tired from driving so slowly, and i didn't want to hit (or get hit by) any deer, so i stopped at a rest area, let my seat back, and went to sleep until the sun came up. once it was daylight, i felt much more comfortable driving. if i'm gonna hit a deer, i at least want to see it coming. i want to hit it on my own terms, not the deer's. life doesn't work that way.
i went all the way to nashville, which took all day because i passed through roanoke and hung out with james! he brings out the exclamation mark in me! we went to a comic book store, we sat around, we had bagels like jewish guys, we exchanged jokes that were hours long...it was great! he's the big brother i would've had if we had the same parents. the coolest thing is that he got a job teaching fourth grade science. i know you're thinking that it's not as cool as i'm making it sound...
the sad news is that i was released from my school. a blessing in disguise? maybe...definitely...certainly. my school was awesome in terms of the staff getting along with each other. it was awful in terms of the kids. i think the staff got along so well because we were united in a front against those damn kids. anyway, i guess there weren't enough kids there to have the number of teachers that were there, so more cuts had to be made. cuts were supposed to have been made before the end of the school year, and i thought i was safe. imagine my shock when my principal called me early on a saturday morning when i was in virginia (i was ironically visiting james that time) to inform me that i had been released. it was depressing, especially since there was a job fair for recently released teachers that thursday...and i was a thousand miles away. she did, however, arrange a phone interview with a principal at another school. i got that job, which brings me to the cool part...
i'm teaching fourth grade science (and social studies) just like james! we're teaching buddies! i think that fact is what's gonna get me through those long nights.
meanwhile (i digress)...after hanging out with james, the wife in-law, and the godson/nephew, i made it to nashville late that evening to have dinner with kia, a college friend who still thinks i'm funny for some reason. my jokes are mediocre at best. we reminisced about the good old days (she referred to it as the "days of dooley"...it's an emory/oxford thing), and talked about life in general. then i took a room for the night and headed back to dallas. i got back home a little before six in the evening yesterday. being from texas sucks because you think you're on the home stretch when you cross the state line back into texas, but then you realize that you're still four hours away.
but i made it...and boy is it hot here. in fact, this afternoon i got in the car and the temperature read 119. just looking at that made it hard to breathe. it was terrible. i need to tint my windows or something.
so, i got back yesterday, reunited with my roommates, "cheech" and "chong," and sat around for the rest of the day because today work started back. that's right, ain't no rest for the weary. i got up in plenty of time, but somehow got to work at my new school, with new people, fifteen minutes late. it was a very wesley thing to do. usually i'm good about being to work on time, but what threw me off was the fact that we were meeting at an arcade place which was farther away than i figured. it was just far. the school itself is only down the street from my old school, so no change there.
the new staff seems to be pretty nice. we'll see about it, though. i have high hopes that i will actually have a chance to teach this year. at my old school i played the part of:
- father
- mother
- judge
- referee
- umpire
- arbitrator
- warden
- counselor
...and maybe teacher if there was enough time at the end of the day. i hope i still remember how to teach.
that's about it. the best part of being done with NYSP is that nothing new is happening there, so i have time to catch up on all those topics i said i was going to come back to but didn't at the time. the back up is finally easing up, so i should hopefully be able to blawg about the other miscellaneous foolishness that went on there...provided i can still remember it. and then i can transition to the foolishness that is destined to go on here.
so, to all my NYSP coworkers, it's been real. i enjoyed seeing everybody again from last year, and meeting new people this year. i think we all got along well for the most part, through all the long nights and long hours, and the minimum wage plus tips (with no tips). i'm gonna miss everybody there...even kel. keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. since the war is over, i'm gonna reveal this: the war between him and me was slightly exaggerated. the premise behind the war, however, was real. but since it's all over, i'm willing to let the past go and move on...but i'm still passive-aggressive, and quite flaky, so what i'm saying now probably will be null and void if we all get together again next year.
and i'm not gonna drive that far anymore,
-w
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