Weekends of weeks gone by...

I thought I would recap a few things from weekends past prior to leaving the country for the other side of the world. To begin with, three weeks ago I attended the much anticipated wedding of my good friend Nikole. It actually was my first wedding since I’ve been old enough to really appreciate anything. It was really beautiful and full of some many fascinating traditions! For example, there was this lasso that was put around the bride and groom by the padrinos del lasso to symbolize the unification of the two. There were these candles that had to be lit for some reason like eternal life. And there was a time during the reception where the bride and groom danced with anyone that would line up to dance with them and each person who came up would give the bride or groom some money. The funny thing was that, while the bride had a nice little bag to hold all her money, the groom had people tape the money together as he wore it. It turned into this headband that then draped down his back and wrapped around him a few times. It looked so silly! And the best thing was that the bride and groom seemed so happy and best of all not stressed out.

They gave the couple lots of advice like communicate even when it's hard, compromise, don’t worry about the small things, expect to argue, and forgive whenever possible, all things that seem much simpler than they really are, but also all things that I have come to appreciate more as important facets of a healthy relationship in recent months. These aspects played out in some of the drama that unfolded towards the end of the wedding which included some bitterness, yelling, lots of storming (not much norming), and was complete with one person marching off with haste, back-turned down the sidewalk and the other calling stupid stuff out of desperation down the street. Quite silly in retrospect and nothing I would have ever imagined myself engaging in, but there it was. To celebrate the craziness, the next day I purchased a brand new backpack (which has worked out very well so far) and a digital camera which I plan on putting to good use in Hong Kong (although planning for something doesn’t always equate to doing it). I don’t know why I have such a hard time taking pictures. I think I’m not used to having a camera for one, but also I’m a little shy and feel uncomfortable taking pictures sometimes. Plus I can be scatterbrained and when there’s a lot going on, taking pictures is often the last thing on my mind. I’ll try my best though because I know how important that is (especially since almost all of the people I know will probably never go to Hong Kong).

The following weekends were less dramatic, but equally occupied as I dealt with this stupid sickness I’ve had ever since the weekend of the wedding, prepping for my last weeks of class, and also preparing for my travels and saying goodbye to my family and friends. I got to visit San Francisco on a whim as I talked to Shahla and realized she was meeting Joey there and that would be my perfect chance to see both of them before I left. It was so relaxing and beautiful lounging in Golden Gate Park with them. And there were these awesome people having a roller dance party straight out of the 80s. They were line-dancing to funky 80s music on roller skates. It puts my line-dancing skills to shame. I got to see this super cute rock `n` roll fundraiser performance where fifth and sixth graders acted out this really cheesy story and in between sang and danced to some classic fifties rock `n` roll songs. I also went to Cindy’s daughter, Cristina’s 16th birthday party which reminded me of all the drama girls get involved in and high school (and beyond) that I try my best to not even touch with a ten-foot pole. Still, it was a fun way to avoid doing my report cards that probably ended up taking a combined total of around 10+ hours throughout the week including grading their science projects, organizing their portfolios, writing the course descriptions for math and science, sifting through each student’s (of the 41 I have) portfolio to get a handle on what grade to assign them, assigning them checkmarks ranging from outstanding to support required on various criteria in math, science, and social/work habits, writing a paragraph evaluation for each student in each area (i.e. 3 paragraphs per student), and finally double-checking to see that there are few typos and I didn’t embarrassingly cut and paste things that altered the gender of the student or, worse, had the wrong name. Managing to complete that dreadful task on Sunday morning, just a day before taking off to Hong Kong, I was finally able to focus on my trip! Crazy, I know. But such has been my life the past 12 months or so and I’m sure that will continue in Hong Kong.