Chameleon
Interesting times.
I find myself needing to test my chameleon abilities in
order to do what keeps me here in Ha Noi – my impending job as an ESL teacher
for elementary school kids. I knew I could be a chameleon at least. Even when I
was a child, I was never particularly in love with children’s things that
weren’t or wouldn’t soon be my very own. Children are interesting, but have
never been a principal passion. It is a widespread demographic, and needless to
say, their needs invoke opportunities like what I have now.
I’ve taught kids before – small
groups of blind kids each time. And I’ve had at least one nephew for the past
15 years. Sad to say I wish I could have gotten more emersion with this last specimen
source than I did, but there it is. I was also a child for at least a decade.
For a little while at
least, I’m going to try to make the reptilian shoes fit. I’ve researched and
recited children’s rhymes, songs, and stories, and have even done some of my
own composition. Reconnecting with the children’s classics has been a funny
thing. Some recollection of the fact that I didn’t always exactly dig being a
child is present. There’s a lot of partial familiarity with the games, which I
credit to the fact that often no one bothered to verbalize the rules for me,
and thus I never actually fully learned how to play. Memories of ostracism
pounce where I seem to recall these were games that other kids played, but
which I was rarely if ever invited or allowed to join in. “The Farmer and the
Dell” – I remember the first refrain of the song, but I have no recollection of
actually learning the game. I think the potential thrill is gone sadly. “The
Bride Cuts the Cheese” – there’s a children’s song.
Anyways,
chins up, and with rewriting the past unlikely, I can at least make a decent chameleon
in Mother Goose’s nest.
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