Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Now it's official. I'm dancing faster than I can. I'm Ginger, and Fred just went on crank. How's that for a multi-century analogy?

Tonight I stayed at school until almost 6:00. There's this program our school has called 21st Century Initiative. It's chock-a-block with federal funding which no one quite understands how to disburse. For instance, one evening this week another teacher just showed up on my doorstep and said I was "on the team," and a student had stayed after school to spend three hours in my company.

That student is a wonderful person and the very model of what a student should be. Getting paid to help him get into college -- and understand the work when he gets there? -- yeah. I'll do that.

This evening the student and I sent out some requests for information to colleges in Baltimore and Washington, DC. Asking colleges for information is rather like using a copy machine. No two web sites are the same. I guess they do that to keep spammers out. Student and I had to re-input every bit of information on every site.

There's one thing all these colleges have in common, though. Every one of them has a special little box to check if you are Hispanic.

Each time student and I came to that little box, we laughed. He is, you see, Hispanic.

He wants to be a writer. I don't know why I would thank the bored gods for dumping him into my lap, but I think this partnership was meant to be.

I think I'm going to encourage him to start a blog.

What else is going on in the Annals of Anne?

Well, Decibel the Parrot got hold of my middle finger and tried to sever it from my hand. He ground away, down to the bone, and only gave up when Spare screamed at him. What an adorable pet! Everyone should own a parrot.

Staying after school to help Student is one matter. Listening to the loquacious Mr. Bigwand and his chipper wife every Wednesday night in the "alternate route" teacher program is another. For some reason known only to him, he called on me last night. He pointed in my face and said, "How are you and I different?"

Oh, was it ever on the tip of my tongue to say, "I'm human!"

But instead I pulled out the tried-and-true. "I'm from Appalachia," I told him.

Which sent him off on another long-winded diatribe about how my formative experiences go into the classroom with me. And they do, of course. I didn't need him to tell me that ... over and over again.

Then, during a break, he blundered by me and said, "By the way, lovely part of the world." As if he has traveled the length and breadth of Appalachia, weighed it in the balance, and found it satisfactory.

So there's my "teacher." A guy who can sum up Appalachia in half a breath by saying, "Lovely part of the world."

I was tempted to show the guy a lovely part of my anatomy. But I need the grade. Gee, he's one swell instructor! Where's that evaluation form?

Saturday I have school from 8:30 until 1:30. All of this is keeping me so young!