reunions and wrong-side of the bed days

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday morning. I've learnt the hard way that there is nothing to be done on mornings, days like that. Best to just accept that the mood will not improve irrespective what comes at you during the day. Often on these kinds of days, if I can, by 12 or 1 o'clock I just get back into bed and sleep. But I didnt have this luxury yesterday. I spent the morning at UCT library, battling with paragraph and argument structures for the long-suffering paper I hoped I could have finished a long, long time ago. But never mind, I have a plan to get the paper into a presentable, proper draft 1 form by the end of the week. It's the holidays, but I'm going to alleviate my guilt doing at least an hour of writing work a day until Christmas. The plan is simple, 1 to 2 hours in the morning, rest of the afternoon on the beach or assigned to some or other Christmas chores. Perfect.

High jinx with Desiree. 

Then I found myself at my old high school in Silvertown at around 2pm. The school itself had a bit of a face lift so on the outside it didnt look anything like it did when I was a pupil there in the mid 80s. I bumped into people I knew, who went to school with me and as one would expect, the odd person who clearly knew me, but who I had absolutely NO CLUE who the hell they were - even after they gently, but enthusiastically provided some background information. I also managed to talk to two of my teachers, who at the time were very instrumental in supporting and nurturing me. We talked about the good grade I got for History (an A on the higher grade, thanks to the power of rote-learning) and that I was possibly the only person in my English  class that understood the matric Shakespeare play we were doing that year. They remembered my 17 year old-self better than I did. That fearlessness that once defined who I was. But these were two classes I really enjoyed because of the teachers who taught them. Today I'm off to another reunion of sorts, with my first cohort of technikon students. Some of them have managed to stay in touch with each other over the almost 15 years since they met, and they sort-of invite me to their get-togethers. Of course I'm deeply honoured and humbled that they still want to see me, and invite me into their lives. I'd like to think I'm that teacher that played a nurturing and supporting role at some stage of their learning lives