and the turkey, like... the lord, came back to life

Oh my gosh, almost two weeks without blogging. I have been so busy the last few weeks, my life has sort of been sucked into a vortex. I can't believe it is the middle of December already.

What I've been doing:

• Subbing pretty much full-time. At the school where I had worked most often, about a month ago, one of the librarians had a big personal event, and she hasn't been to work, so I've been subbing pretty much every day in the library at this school. It's been SO nice to know every morning where I am going, not having to wait around for the phone to ring and then rush off to somewhere new. I've gotten to know the other teachers, I know a lot of the kids, and I love the school. The principal is really great - he also recommended me, with a few other subs, to a principal at another school who let him know they had an opening.
  
• On Thursday, a class of eighth graders started calling me "Ms. Ninja" because I have an ability to walk right up behind them when they are not listening to me, and catch them in the act. I had been said, "Please stop talking" about three times, and about half the class had actually shut up, and some others were murmuring, but this one kid was still telling a story, so I walked up behind him, and leaned over his shoulder and said "Please stop talking means please stop talking." He freaked out because he had no idea I was there, and said I was like a ninja. I managed to do something similar two other times that period, and thus, "Ms. Ninja." So now these kids yell "Hi Ms. Ninja!" when they see me in the hall. Delightful. I have only one more week at this school.
• Two different tutoring jobs, which are fun, but exhausting. Together, they only take up about 12 hours a week, but the commutes add another 7-9 hours of my time each week.
• DADA is still going strong. I love doing it so much, but it is a time suck. Next weekend is closing weekend, if you haven't seen it yet. Last night we had a 60 kids from a high school German Club from Detroit. It was amazing. They acted like teenagers, but you could totally tell that it was because they were engaged and invested in the show. They understood the games being played, and tried to play them against the DADAs. They reacted to lines that you wouldn't think 17 year-olds would get, that adults often didn't react to. They definitely were not bored. As they were leaving, I heard words like "great" and "amazing." Don said, and I agree, that we totally changed their opinion of what theater can be - likely they had seen staid, uninteresting high school productions and 50 year old musicals, and that had developed their opinion of what "theater" was. Hopefully, we blew that apart.
• Last Saturday, the DADAs performed one of my DADA poems as a special treat for me, which I so, so appreciated. It was wonderful.
  
• The Playground is making some managerial changes for next year, so I have been spending a lot of time preparing for that, training the members.
  
• Since I have not been home so much, my apartment is a disaster. Anyone want to come over and clean for me as a Christmas present?
• Oh, Christmas presents. I had a free period at school yesterday, ordered things from Amazon, and had them shipped to my mother's house. God, I love the interwebs.

The post title is, again, another DADA quote. I heart the DADAs.