Calamities!!!!!!!!!!!Oh my goodness.

Fellow bloggers, if I haven't made it to post on your sites, it is because today I am the crisis management queen....what a weird day.

It sort of started last night when two of my fellow teachers had a big old complaint session with me. We've just got back for the next term, and the break doesn't seem to have been long enough. They went on for a good half hour or more. It was fine, and in some ways kinda nice, it made me feel like an accepted member of the gang....

This morning I go in for my class, and the student, it's a private, is SO not there. The poor guy, he's dishevelled, unshaven, and cannot for the life of him think of anything. He looks exhausted to boot. Finally he tells me that he hasn't eaten anything because he has to go into the hospital to have an x-ray done because he has a hernia in his stomach????He is translating directly, I assume he means an ulcer. Poor soul. I didn't have to manage that problem, but he was tricky to teach....just not thinking at all.

So I get out of that class, and come downstairs and another fellow teacher is having a meeting with one of the administrators. They are both lovely, but the admin lady is all worked up and the other lady looks like she is sinking under the weight of the world....so then my co-teacher pours it all out on me....and they want to see if I can come up with some solutions! I barely know my way around the rooms, but OK, I'll try...then one of the teachers from last night comes by, and she blows off the handle about the same issue...we come up with more ideas....

Finally I go, with a set of keys to the school...I feel honoured, few people have them....and get home, and the dog is a whining anxious mess...he keeps running up to me, sitting down, staring at me beseechingly and then running over to the bag with his leash and plastic bags in it....whining all the time....he does this a few times before it dawns on me that Lassie here is trying to tell me something, as in, "I HAVE to go outside N.O.W." Leash on, he tows me down the hill at a full run....should have taken the time for the runners, the birks are a little awkward in the rain...he has the squits.....5 watery goes, and he barfs. Oh my. I have the wherewith all to get a sample, and so it is off to the vets. I wait outside as Chucks rear is not very charming, and this man keeps coming out and crying. By this point, I am crying along with him. The vet looks like hell, pale, and she has a pain in her back. Finally they call me in, and as I had guessed, they had euthanised someone's pet...turns out that it was also the vet's cousin's dog, and she had known it since it was a baby...and she has three surgeries today, and was up all night with the stomach flu. Poor woman. And there is my shitty dog for her to deal with.

Finally get home, dog had a shot for pain, and we have a prescription. The man is a little tired and busy, but he thankfully is doing fine, the eldest however has a very sore back, and the youngest *sob* doesn't want to go back to school this afternoon. OMG.

*Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth*

Feed the youngest, it always makes everything easier. Dope up the eldest with tylenol and give her food. Refuse to discuss anything till we have all eaten. The dog is following me around alternately whimpering and sleeping.

Force the kids to do English school work, discuss with the man how to handle the "meet the creature" night that we have at school today with a potentially barfing dog....he'll go for sure, I may or may not depending on the dog.

Shovel the kids off to school, yes both of them, I'm cruel that way sometimes...and realise that I have the keys to the language school. I was given them because I was supposed to have a class at three and we had an elaborate system for returning them when I left, but the lovely admin lady had phoned to cancel the class....but my Catalan is such that I wasn't sure about the keys. Soooooo

Chuck and I head down with a book to wait for the owner to arrive, as I think they may be her keys and then she would be locked out. Which would be the pits. Nothing like walking with the keys and leaving the boss out in the rain.

Turns out they weren't her set, but a spare, and I can use them for tomorrow too. I don't know if I keep them for good, but it would be nice. Many of my classes start at 9 or 3, right after lunch, and I am frequently finding myself outside waiting with the student waiting for someone to let us in....

Now, to feed the dog rice and carrots and yogurt, and see if he barfs, to go or not to go to the parent teacher meeting tonight, and then to take the dog back to the same unwell, exhausted vet this evening, and then put the kids to bed. When does dinner happen?

None of this is serious, but it is just so much? Is it a full moon or something? The husband thinks were due to get a storm tonight.

You know what?

It's starting to feel like I live here, rather than like I am visiting.