two recent occurances in the life of a preschool teacher......

(....I should mention, neither of these have to do with teaching or my boys....)

this morning i noticed on my pointer finger on my left hand two small white bumps.

it itched so bad.

so bad. and it hurt like crazy.

i figured most of the morning it was just hives and i wasn't worried. but around lunch time i had reached my limit on pain and decided to ask Roelene since she's our nurse here on the farm.

by this point i imagined it was a small spider bite. i mean, yesterday alone i killed 5 spiders in my room and saw about 8 others i couldn't quite get too. so they are EVERYWHERE and one biting me wouldn't have freaked me out too bad.

she checks it out for a bit. tells me it isn't a spider bite because its two small little marks, not one, but she isn't sure what it is and is probably some type of bite.

no worries.

until, jacques peaks his head around the corner and asks how i am. its nice seeing him around since he has been gone for a few weeks.

we hug and catch up,

yada yada yada

and he asks to look at it.

so i gave him my hand and he agrees its definitely not a spider bite.

"it looks like a snake got it good" he tells me.

all the blood left my head, as did all form of sound and breath in my lungs. apparently leah and roelene said my face was priceless. all i know is goosebumps ran up and down my arms and legs and terror made me freeze.

it took about a minute for me to even realize everyone was laughing and it was a joke.

oooo that boss-man of mine.

i was still in shock as jacques kissed my forehead in apology and reassurance that no snake got me.

i think that is my nightmare here. that and stumbling upon a jackel during a walk.
*shudders*

.............................................................................................

also, yesterday was the day i was "anticipating" for a very long time.

not the good kind of anticipation where if you save your chore money long enough you can buy a jamba juice.

nor the good (to me, not to most of the population) kind of knowing your research papers and finals are due its just a matter of days and weeks till that moment comes.

no, no, this was the dreaded sort of anticpation of me playing with fire.

alas, yesterday i got burned.

literally.

so leah's house and mine are approximately 100 yards away from each other.

so close, eh?

but there are two fences that separate us. my fence isn't so bad. it has a gate just 15 feet from my house and isn't electrified

her fence has no gate (well, it does but its about a mile away) and is electrified.

makes visiting her enough of a big deal that i can't just "pop" in like i'd like.

however, about a week after arriving the boys showed me a little hole crawl space.

problem is, its not very large.

and the wires are VERY charged,

so, if

i was to hit them, it would hurt very much.

apparently it hurts so much, some of the guys working here (as in, adult males) won't use it anymore.

it hurt them that much.

sweet lauren about 3 weeks ago hit it and she had a welt the size of texas on her arm for over a week.

i'm always warned not to use it. especially the one day i crawled through in the rain.

that wasn't smart, i agree.

but still, i kept using it.

i said i'd use it till i hit it.

and i had it it. multiple times. i guess i didn't hit it very hard i kept thinking.

i knew it was just a matter of time till i was rushing,

till i wasn't paying close enough attention,

and it got me.

IT GOT ME GOOD.

i had a backpack on and my tote bag on my shoulder. i had lots to get to leah's.

for the record i've traveled with more bags on my back/body before and been fine.

i don't know what happened yesterday. ahhhhhhhhhh

so there are two wires about 2 feet apart about 8 inches off the ground. about one 1/2 feet off the ground is another wire that is in between them. so you have those three "on the ground." then about 4 feet in the air in the middle is a 4th wire.

going through this you have to bend over just so, so that your back is flat, but you have to lift your leg in such a way that it doens't go up to high and streches over the 3 bottom wires and into the gate on the other side.

i need to make a video and demonstarte but its really not that hard to do.

well, yesterday i bumped the top wire and though nothing happened, it must have made me jerk because the bottom one got me right on my upper thigh.

:(

the pain cursed straight for my neck and thats what hurt the worst. i'm assuming those metal screws in my neck were nice little conductors. everyone else that has been shocked said it hurt their heart a lot

so, i'm not sure i'm glad i have metel in my spine and that absorbed most of it, or if that means my heart doens't work right??!! hahahahhaa :)

i'm glad to report i have no welt or mark.

and also, though it did hurt, i'm still going ot use it to visit leah. it just saves way to much time.

and i'm lazy to walk all the way from gate to gate to get in.

plus i feel like a spy everytime i use it

so, i guess the moral of today is:

no snake bite on my finger

and the fence isn't as bad as everyone says. i mean, its bad. just livable :)