goodnight moon

hm. still out of work, waiting for my doctor to see my x-rays and tell me what to do with this achy crooked shoulder of mine. i'm back from my parents' house in mission, where i just spent several days being fed, reading by the fire, and cuddling with lil' guy (the weird family cat who likes to drool all over people's chests and eat their clothes). it was nice. i could have stayed for weeks, except i knew i'd end up getting fat. i don't think i even left the house for the three days i was there. it's so nice to have parents who will let me come home and hang around and eat all their food and interfere with their routine and then even pay for my train ride home.

i babysat last night for some kids i adore - i used to nanny them full time when they were 9 months and 3 years old respectively, and they are now 3 and a half and 6. jacob (the older one) is one of the most precocious lovely kids i've ever met; he's a die-hard obama fan and has categorized canada's political parties by color: "green is best, orange is ok, and blue is bad!" he also told me one day, with big dramatic eyes: "stephen harper likes WAR!" this was back when he was five. ha. he showed me his new fish yesterday, whom he has named 'William Shakespeare Noah Skytrain'. and it is pretty neat to be able to still hang out with ayomi (the younger one) - i watched (and hopefully helped) her learn to talk and take her first steps, and now here she is, this weird little happy pixie kid who talks in full sentences and has grown about two feet!

jacob is in grade one, which is the grade of some the kids in the class i volunteered in (it was a one-two split, with a two-three split class sharing the big open-concept classroom). it's a pretty neat age - they are still so young and eager to learn and maintain that sweetness that younger kids have. it's a hard grade to teach though, from what i've heard - you pretty much single handedly have to teach them to read within the space of one school year. that is no small task, especially when a lot of kids aren't necessarily getting any help at home. and when they are still so young and full of energy and unable to sit still a lot of the time.

hanging out with these older kids gets me excited for teaching. i love the babies i look after - katie, whom i have been nannying since january, is just the most lovely happy hilarious thing ever, and i am very attached to her. there is something really nice about getting to know kids when they are still babies, and watching them change completely and cultivate these distinctive personalities. but i'm definitely excited to teach and hang out with older kids who have the capacity for more complex thought. i'm excited to get to read books to them that have more than one sentence to the page. books that go beyond "where's spot? oh, THERE'S spot!" i'm excited to be able to talk politics on a kid-level, to teach them all sorts of neat things and watch their eyes light up. to take them on field trips and get to know them all individually and help them get through any difficulties they might have.

and. i leave for mexico in less than two weeks!

also, i watched 65_redroses the other day, which is pamela's friend's documentary about a girl coping with cystic fibrosis. it was a great movie, but very sad. they filmed the doctors giving the main character a double lung transplant, and it just astounded me. i know that doctors do organ transplants, but i guess i'd never thought about the logistics. humans have figured out how to remove someone's lungs (remove them!) and then replace them with the lungs of someone who is dead (!) and somehow keep the person being operated on alive throughout this. this is totally and utterly amazing to me. how can this be? how did they ever learn to do this? and what the hell have i ever accomplished on that scale in my life? humans have the capacity to do amazing things like lung transplants and going to the moon and flying. and all i ever do is sit around and read books.

the body aches and that ache takes its time

having an interesting week. on tuesday i was biking home from work when i got hit straight-on by a car (a BMW no less!). it was...scary. i have been in one cycling accident before; i got car-doored (also on my way home from work) a few years ago. after that one i got up off the road and the woman who hit me gave me a ride home, though i ended up going to the hospital several hours later when my wrist started to hurt like crazy - i had apparently sprained it but the adrenaline and such had kept it from hurting right away.

this time i ended up in an ambulance, in a neck brace, in a serious panic. it was such a crazy feeling, watching a car drive straight at me, expecting it to stop and then all of a sudden i was on his hood and then flying onto the pavement. and thinking all the while "holy shit, i just got hit by a car". i remember feeling my helmet hit the road pretty hard - it's such a weird feeling knowing you're getting hit by a car, and having no control over your body and knowing that this isn't good. i got up right away and went and sat on the sidewalk, in total shock. another cyclist called an ambulance right away and then it was all this crazy dream of being put in a neck brace, being strapped down and carried into an ambulance and then sort of going into shock, going into a serious panic trying to digest what had just happened, and fearing the worst.

well, in the end everything turned out pretty alright, considering. i walked out of the hospital four hours later, with a possible fracture in my collarbone, a sprain and a torn ligament, and a possible sprain in my knee. my entire body aches, more so today than yesterday, but... yeah, could have been so much worse. i keep going over the accident in my head and it's kind of nightmarish, when i remember clearly the exact moment of being hit and knowing it.

i think the thing that gets me is how easy it is for these things to happen; how quickly things can go from being fine to being terrifying. so many things could have gone so wrong - who knows what would have happened if i wasn't wearing a helmet? and beyond that, the thing that scares me is that i was practically stopped at a stop sign, in my own lane, on a quiet side-street. i was almost at a stand-still! it just frustrates me how vulnerable i am as a cyclist, as a pedestrian. the guy who hit me was perfectly fine, with barely a scratch on his shiny black beamer. it just frustrates me how powerless we are - those people who choose not to drive, or who can't afford to drive. i suppose drivers are vulnerable too, but when it comes to car vs cyclist, or worse car vs pedestrian, we all know who's going to end up worse-off. i just hate that i have no choice but to have to deal with cars each and every time i get on a bike. i just hate how many people out there drive so recklessly, when they could so easily kill someone... i just wish that the city could create some off-road cycling paths in this city, close some streets off from vehicle traffic and give us cyclists just one or two roads where we need not worry about cars. one day...

well, other than that, everything is just lovely. my nephew linden is almost seven weeks old already (!), and cute as a button. i leave for mexico in three weeks, where i will get to spend some time with my dear friend fiona, and then josh is flying down to meet me and we'll have almost three weeks to travel, explore and certainly to spend some time on the beach eating guacamole and drinking margaritas. and i am starting to look forward to school. i have no idea what to expect, i have no idea if i will love or hate teaching, but it is something new and exciting and i think i might like it - if not forever, at least for a while, until i go back to school again, and again, and again.