Tennis AND Teaching

It's Saturday -- finally a day I can have some free time to unpack a bit and set up the apartment. The week has been incredibly busy, and I'm exhausted.

The move was stressful. I was lucky enough to have five friends come help me move on Friday night last week -- two Taiwanese classmates and their boyfriends, and my friend Josiah from Ohio. Josiah and I got the truck at 5:30 p.m., and we did not finish moving everything until 12:30 a.m.! I felt really terrible because I had no idea how much stuff I was moving, and my friends were so tired and hungry by the time we finished. I took everyone out for Dominican roast chicken afterwards at Malecon, so I wasn't in bed till 2 a.m.

I woke up late to return the truck before 8 a.m., so I hurried as much as possible, and then went to the airport to pick up my father. We came back to my neighborhood to eat brunch. My dad and I brought Tigger and Bibbo to the new place, and I set up the bed for my dad to take a nap. I had to move a few more things and clean up a bit at both Shane's old apartment, from where I had moved a lot of furniture, and at Seena's. In between, I met up with my new roommate, Adam, who arrived from the UK that day. By the end of the day, my legs felt like jelly, I had worked so much.

The next morning, my dad and I went out to Flushing Meadows to watch some US Open tennis matches. We had day and evening tickets for three days, Sunday through Tuesday. We would leave around 9 to have breakfast, go to the tennis center by subway, and then watch tennis all day. We'd take a break between the day and evening sessions by going one stop on the subway to Flushing, where there are lots of good Chinese restaurants. Whether or not the matches were done, we'd try to leave at 11 pm in order to get home by around midnight. It was tiring but also amazing to be able to watch some of the matches. We saw Serena and Venus Williams and Justine Henin each play twice over the course of the three days, and we saw Federer and Djokovic and Nadal play once. Something about being there is so exciting, makes the matches so much more interesting; you get to hear and be part of the crowd, you see how long the court really is, and the players impress you with their strength and skill and personalities. I loved shouting for my favorite players -- tennis is a quiet sport, so it's cool that they can hear you when you shout during breaks. I especially had fun cheering on Spanish- and French-speaking players. I was most impressed by Justine Henin and Roger Federer, the top ranked players in the world at the moment; they play so well while remaining calm and collected, two characteristics I myself would like to exhibit under pressure.

Tuesday, I didn't go to the day session, because it was the children's first day of school. I got to see my cooperating teacher scare the daylights out of the 5th graders, which I think is probably a good thing, since I've heard they have lots of problems with discipline. I also spent all day Wednesday and Thursday student teaching, and attended classes on Thursday afternoon and evening and a student-teaching retreat on Friday all day. I don't have TV or cable at home, so I have been reserving library study/conference rooms in order to watch the remaining US Open matches on cable. It may be an abuse of resources, but they have cable hooked up to the projectors, and I'm allowed to reserve rooms as I wish, so I don't feel bad about it. We are, as I write this, watching the men's semifinals. Because I still don't have internet at home, I come here with my laptop and do some work as well.

This morning I took out a truck from zipcar and went to Ikea. I got a sofa-bed for the living room, because there's not much to sit on in the living room, and because I am tired of sleeping on the floor. I had been using an air mattress, but there appear to be leaks; every morning I woke up on it half deflated. As of yesterday, lower back pain has been bothering me, and I'm sure it's the stupid air mattress. Now I can have something normal to sleep on!

This afternoon, after my room reservation is up, I plan to go to Target to get a bunch of things I need for the apartment -- a dustbuster, some pots and pans, a coffeemaker, a bathmat, etc. After that, I'll get down to the business of organizing the apartment. Then, perhaps, I can spend Sunday catching up on rest.