SAY Yes soccer

When one of our students brought a new soccer ball to afterschool on Wednesday, all the kids begged to play. Chris obligingly set up a game, only to discover that not a single one of the nine kids present knew how to play. We went from the mad scramble of free-range soccer to a very organized chalk circle system where we practiced kicking and passing both to teammates and into the goal. No matter how we played, helping the kids navigate this sport for the first time proved incredibly entertaining!

The End.

Technically our LOST finale party isn't until tomorrow night, but Brianne invited me and Luke over to watch it tonight if we wanted. We did want, and maybe Luke went, but I ended up sorting shelves in the Sunday school closet instead. While the rest of the world is in shock and awe (I hope) over the show's revelations, the most exciting discovery of my night was finding a package of shrinky-dink left over from last summer. I can deal with that. Just so long as my face looks like this when I finally see the finale.


EDIT 5/24: Nope. My LOST finale face was, overall, much closer to this.

Except, you know, with the TV instead of a dress.

Maybe I would have been happier with the dress.

Observing Brooklyn "Evangelistism" Day with 8 other local Chinese churches by doing park & street outreach...

Must be the colors and the kids

Within the last hour, I’ve been struck by the uniqueness of my current situation here; the blessing of it; how much I’m going to miss it. It started as I leaned against the kitchen doorframe, pizza crust in hand, leisurely watching the boisterous game of Monkey in the Middle taking place before me. “Ms Rachel, come play!” called one of the kids. I laughed and shook my head, indicating the unfinished pizza. But for the first time, I realized how much I’m going to miss having a job that lets me play Monkey in the Middle every day with twelve elementary school kids and three of my best friends.

The game didn’t end until the second-to-last kid left. Then Rodrigo, one of our newer first graders, continued to lob the Bulbasaur plushie back and forth with Mr Chris. “I’m the only kid here!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “I’m so lucky today!” He kept saying that: as he and Chris played catch; as he helped us clean up; as we huddled around the couches for a game of Break the Ice. “I’m here so late today! I’m so lucky, right, Ms Rachels?” Every time he said it, I remembered how my clothes were still soaked from walking a total mile to and from school with two trips of kids. I remembered how one of my arms was so much wetter than the other, because it's the one that had been holding the hand of a child instead of an umbrella. I kept watching Rodrigo's toothless grin. “So are we,” I always answered.

Eventually his dad came, and I trailed Chris with a Christian magazine from the mail, making fun of certain titles and expressing interest in others. Dion was there, too, singing softly to himself near the piano when he wasn’t with us. Outside, the mechanical whir of a water machine reminded us of teasing Jorge, cleaning in the rain. I pulled open the fridge door and prepared dinner for me and Luke: vegetarian baked zita, made just for me and Lindsay at the youth group fundraiser last Friday. All of us left were laughing. It’d been a long, wet, dark day outside, and we were sarcastic but pretty happy. Pretty content. And I realized how wonderful all of that is.

PS I've now referenced this beautiful song twice in two weeks, so if anyone's interested, here's a video with lyrics listed.

Walkaway Renee

I am very concerned about my life.

Very concerned.

Very concerned.

Yellow hair, you are a funny bear.

I'm back to blond.

I ACTUALLY SAW JEFF MANGUM PERFORM

And The Clean, and Yo La Tengo again, and Claudia Gonson of The Magnetic Fields, and Sharon Von Etten, and Portastatic, and Dimmer, and Kyp Malone, and Coasting, and a couple comedians, and the Kilgour brothers all over the place, and and and...

Oh man. I am not at all ashamed to say I was openly weeping.

So much love.

BrooklynVegan has an excellent summary of the whole night, plus a collection of bootlegged Mangum videos, here.

Today I gave five two-year-olds their yogurt - on the floor so nobody would fall from the table - while I took the lone three-year-old around the corner to the bathroom. We were only gone a minute or two, but when we got back, the two-year-olds had made a yogurt slip-n-slide on the kitchen floor. All of the yogurt had been dumped out, and the kids were taking turns running and wiping out on the mess. Ingenious, but really hard to clean up in a house that doesn't stock paper towels for environmental reasons.