I decided that I really wanted to post some pictures of my nephew and I. Unfortunately I can't post pictures. So I made the first changes to my pitiful website in ages, and added a page just for these pix. :-)


"http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/cs234/Noah.html"

It's amazing to me the vastly different perceptions of me that people have. For instance, my coworkers at the children's museum think that I would make a very good lawyer and that I'm somewhat anti-social. On the other hand, my supervisor at Bath and Body Works said she was shocked when she heard I was planning on law school, because I'm so nice and so social - she had me pegged for teacher. And my supervisor at the museum says she is impressed with how much I've grown as an educator over the course of this AmeriCorps year. She says I have became "a real natural, a magical educator."

And this of course is the shocker of the year for me: I adore little kids. Especially the kids in the Head Start program, who are so needy for attention and are in danger of suffocating you with affection when you give them even just a little attention. I don't think I could survive this year w/o the kids. (Of course withouth them I wouldn't be here.) But despite the impression of various coworkers, I am a very social being and thrive on love and affection - giving and receiving it. I suppose that's why I eat up all the attention from the kids; I need it almost as much as they do!! After all, I'm cut off from everyone except my boyfriend here, and I'm used to having many more people around to care about and to care about me.

But in any case, to put in one more thread before I tie this all together, I remember a comment from the friend who's name is on this blog ;-) when I made dinner for him the first time . . . he was kind of weirded out by me playing hostess and cooking and all that. He said something about I just didn't seem like that type of person; somehow an ambitious Ivy Leaguer image didn't jive with the homemaker type. I thought it was kind of funny; in my mother's house all of us were expected to be able to know how to keep a house well cleaned and well fed, regardless of whatever else we would do in life. (I say know how - not that I always practice that. ;-) )

In just the same way, I kind of doubt most people would see me as likely to be good with or fond of kids . . . in fact I myself was a bit dubious about my abilities when I took this position. It's extremely gratifying to discover otherwise. I don't have any pictures of me with the Head Start kids, but I do have pictures of me with my nephew, who I've only met this once, :-( so I'm sharing those.