School snapshots:

At least one student in each class told me I had a hole in my sweater and should sew it, very concerned for the state of my wardrobe.

7th grade Natasha: “Miss Kathleen, how you say ‘vahitna’ in English?”
Me: “Pregnant.”
Natasha: “Miss Kathleen, you, pregnant?”

Sasha from 8L ran out of class at the bell, I yelled after him because he hadn’t written down the homework; Roma said don’t worry, I’ll pass it on to him, he must run to escaping a beating (this was supposed to ease my mind about the homework).

Paper airplanes and spitballs and phone chargers and curses

I came to school during break wanting to talk to the Vice Principal/my landlady about next semester’s schedule (and how my ungrounded boiler might electrocute me and one wall of my apartment is black with mold and a cabinet in the kitchen is most decidedly not at a 90 degree angle…) but the teachers were nowhere to be found, and I only discovered later that they were in a meeting informing them that the school could not pay their salaries so they must agree to sign affirming they didn’t want to be paid for 2 weeks, or 5 teachers will be let go.

Quarantine right before break, meaning the students were off school nearly a month

Comedy of the absurd staff meetings during which teachers are given minute instructions how to make all the paperwork say what it needs to say (once I very nearly laughed out loud at how pointless it all was, but luckily refrained)