The Holiday Spirit

For once, I do not want to complain and moan about teachings. I want to share the happy half of my life that does not involve school. I must say that going through an experience as hellish as this can seem okay when you have the right people surrounding you. For my every day needs and support, I know that I can turn to my two amazing (and very interesting) roommates, Caroline and Theresa. Yes, I had my worries when I first moved in with them both. Caroline and Theresa are both from the east coast, so their life styles are a bit different then us westerners. For Caroline, one of the biggest culture shocks was her first visit to Trader Joes ("Kellee, where is the real food? I don't eat this organic crap"). For Theresa, it has been teaching high school Spanish at the worst school in California, even though she has an Elementary Teaching credential from Virginia. Strange? Yes. Abnormal for TFA's semi-random placements? No.

Every day I know that when I come home to beautiful Berkeley, I have my roommates here for some love and laughs. Caroline and I teach at the same school, but we never see each other (she uses the down stairs copier, I use the upstairs). What matters is that when we come home, we can share funny and horrible stories and we actually know who the kids are (our school has about 275 kids). Here is our usual after school routine: come home, eat cheese, talk about how horrible our day was, occasionally share some hilarious confiscated notes, talk about our worst class (mine is 4th period, Theresa's is 2nd period, and Caroline's is 5th), then sit down and eat dinner together like family (occasionally with a tall glass of wine). It is this make-shift family that I have come to love that gets me through the day. I know that I can come home and escape the chaos of Oakland and be with my roommates who are going through the same thing (if not worse) then me.

This weekend was a wonderful reminder of how much fun I have with my roommates doing absolutely nothing, yet everything. Saturday included pumpkin carving, 3 hour long music video (plus 2 hours editing), watching Boy Meets World, and laughing up a storm. I love the holidays (especially Halloween) and I am glad I get to spend it with some amazing people.

Even through all of these hard times I know that I have create some of the best friends in the world. For that, it is all worth it.

Ms. Quane

Check out our music video. Don't judge :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPQv2wmzs-4