Kid: Ms. Yang, I hope we don't have school tomorrow.
Me: (sigh) I hope we do have school tomorrow. ... [Kid], You know that if they have to cancel school tomorrow, that means that a lot of poor people are out of their homes, right? You know they'd only do it because they have to use the public schools as evacuation centers?*
Kid: Yeah... I know. My maid's family is staying with us right now.
Me: The whole family? How big is their family?
Kid: There are 11 of them.
Me: Everybody is staying with you??
Kid: Yeah. My mom told her to bring her family over, so they're all staying with us for now.
Me: Wow. That's really nice of your family to do that, [Kid]. But wow, that's a lot of people.
Kid: (smiles) Yeah, but it's OK... Our house is pretty big and we have 3 extra rooms.
Me: Oh, cool.
Kid: Anyway, I hope there's no school tomorrow!!
Me: (rolling eyes) I hope there is school.
*Background info: Tropical storms are really bad right now. It's supposed to rain for the next 3 days straight, and those heavy rains can cause collapsed roads/homes and (obviously) loss of lives, especially since it has pretty much not stopped raining since last Friday. So, the country generally is in high alert (and a lot of anxiety).
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PS. Random tangent about snow days: Growing up in Southern California, we never had snow days. So, as a kid, I never experienced the excitement of getting to sleep in and then going out sledding. But, we did have a couple of "smog days" that I could recall, when the city's smog level was so high (you sciency people know how smog level rises with the heat) that it wasn't supposed to be healthy to go outside, so the city would cancel school for the day. Obviously, we all went out anyway. But, come on! It was 90+ degrees and exceedingly beautiful (albeit I guess smoggy) outside -- what kind of sucker teenager would stay at home??
It wasn't until years later, as a teacher in NYC, that I experienced my first snow day. I think I just slept all day and graded in bed while watching Law and Order.
It does seem to be one storm after another these days. Hope you're all okay.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in CA, too, (Sacto.), so no snow days. But when I taught in NJ for 9 years, Woo HOOO, snow days galore.
Ms. Cookie
My boyfriend grew up in Jersey. :) In the 'burbs they definitely get more snow days than in the city! The one snow day we had in NYC was like the first one in 5 years, or something. (City politics prevents more snow day from happening, I guess. Plus the busses are still running even when it has snowed.)
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