I�m trying to keep myself occupied before class starts so I don�t get too nervous about being observed today. Getting nervous is such a useless...I was going to say emotion, but it�s really more active than that. A useless activity. It�s not like I�d do anything differently if I weren�t being observed. Being observed doesn�t make me know fewere (or more) things. All it does is make me stumble around in class in a way that I don�t usually do.

So I am hiding out in my office for a few more minutes as the power tools buzz outside (they are renovating the building) and one of the worst singers I�ve ever heard (and that�s saying something) is warming up down the hall in such a way that is sounds like she�s screaming.

Today thus far has been a jumble of impressions. The family�three generations � chatting in French at my provincial train stop. The woman in front of me at the coffee shop downtown with a baby in a sling �five days old,� she said � and the mother looked to be a good bit closer to 50 than 40. Or is it just that I�m used to hanging around young people here at school? The little boy on the second train who drove his toy train around the window and ran from side to side of the train to make sure he didn�t miss a thing. The woman who wished me �Happy Mathematics month� from behind a sign that read �Free candy, free math.� Do they need freeing, I wondered. From my office window everyone I see at this minute has unnatural hair � one short and bright purple, another with a fuschia stripe down the middle, another with one green braid on one side of her face. A rainbow of personal expression on a sunny spring day.

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