Truth of Life

"The more garbage that happens to you, the better you are... Our lives are just vapor, that evaporates. So you'd better make use of what you've got."--Reginald Hill, September 5th 2002, lecture on Anglo-Saxon poetry techniques.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Miss Bunn

Miss Bunn is me. She's the lady at school. The blonde one. The one who works in small groups and teaches kids how to pronounce words in Spanish even though she doesn't know the meaning of the words. Miss Bunn is funny. Kids really like her.

I don't like being called, "Miss Bunn." When I was in Ukraine, I was called by my first name by students, teachers, and friends alike. I didn't want to feel like an old lady.

Today, I realized that I am, in fact, an old lady. The girls I teach transitions English to were born in 1999 or 2000, during my junior year of high school. Now I see why they might expect me to be married. They look at me and think, "she's old."

They don't understand the "Miss" thing. I'm older. That's all that counts. So they call me Mrs. Bunn most of the time.

One day, the kids asked me my age. First Deisy asked, "are you an adult?" to which Daniela answered, "Yeah, she's an adult, she has a job." But what made my day was when Virginia said, "I thought you were a teenager." That's sweet, right. I'm young. My bones aren't getting brittle yet!