for my observation this morning, i pushed myself out of my yummy purple flannel sheets at 7:15 and into the cold blue yonder. brigid hiked with me to about where the trolley was supposed to pick me up and take me to upper darby high skool. since she had a class, she had to turn back before we reached the endpoint and consequently i didn't find the actual trolley pick-up point until after the one i was supposed to catch had passed on. after a cold blue while, another came, and i got off at the right stop and power-walked and managed to arrive only 20 minutes late. except, upon closer inspection, it turned out i was at the wrong skool.
a pleasant secretary volunteered to drive me to beverly hills middle skool, which is where i was supposed to be. there, at last, two hours after i'd gotten up after four hours of sleep, i met the transitional education program class i'll be sitting in on seven more weeks.

the teacher of the 2 of the 3 class periods i sat in on is the head of this refugee program. on one hand, she's cheerful and affectionate with the children and seems quite skilled; on the other, she insisted the students call her "miss" ("because i'm not married") and kept telling the girls to "sit like a lady." she introduced me around as "miss bloom" and requested that the children identify themselves and their backgrounds. one by one, they voiced places i'm dimly sure i could find on a map: liberia; ghana; sierra lione; eritrea; sudan. most speak understandable english. just glancing at them, you wouldn't be able to tell that they aren't native born african-americans. but then little details pop up to remind you: two of the girls, when introducing themselves, added that their favorite thing to do is eat.

on a very different note -- in a very different world, even -- back at swat, flirting is a hot topic of conversation. people insist it's a perfectly valid, positive act, that there's nothing wrong with identifying as a Flirt. yet when they themselves are suggested to be Flirts, they become defensive. although i've participated in the who is v. who isn't discussion, no one has ventured to pin me in either category. just as well. quite likely i'd be offended whether the decision were yea or nay. funny that such a meaningless frivolous thing strikes such a chord in people.