Crunching Leaves

Dear Friend,

Today I was able to crunch two wonderful sets of leaves at two different times. Yes, crunchable leaves in January. You see, we don't have Fall here in Indonesia, but occasionally leaves get old and fall of their trees, then they dry up and lie waiting for me to crunch them. I was a little skeptical about their crunching ability, but was pleasantly surprised. Both sets of leaves that I stepped on sounded like biting into a really fresh Pringles chip. Once I wanted to collect a shoe box full of prime crunching leaves and save them until February and then sprinkle them on the side walk to watch people excitedly crunch them, because one rarely ever sees crunchable leaves in February.

Speaking of crunch. Once I was babysitting these kids and we were having dinner with baby carrots as the veggie. Naturally the 5 year old boy didn't like them and wasn't going to eat them. "Let's see who can make the biggest crunch," I said right before chomping into one of my baby carrots. C-R-U-N-C-H! His sisters immediately joined in the carrot crunching game. "I think that was an 8!" "Oh wow! Definitely a 10." "That carrot barely made a sound, 2" Eventually the 5 year old joined in. He took one carrot and bit as hard as he could, "Wow! That was really loud~!" we all exclaimed. His big blue eyes lit up at the praise he recieved and he decided to give the same baby carrot another big chomp; unfortunately, this one was followed by a cry of pain. The carrot was too small and he accidentally chomped on his finger! I looked at his big blue eyes and pouting face, then one giant elephant tear glided down his cheek. So much for the "let's make eating carrots fun" game.

Today was the first day of school in 2011. We have some student teachers in grade 2 and 3. I can't believe just one year ago I was in the exact same shoes; experiencing my first overwhelming day in a new school wondering "How will I ever do this?" But then, I always managed; we all did, that's college. We would receive assignments that are hard, crazy and time consuming; which we 'brilliantly' left to the last minute to complete, but then we always do finish them, and finish them well. I miss those crunch days. Running to the computer lab after choir, creating a cover page and adding page numbers, printing out my paper, "Come on printer, come on!" I would whisper, then sprinting up a flight of stairs, running across the green soggy grass in front of the chapel, dashing through three sets of double doors, running up another flight of stairs and finally arriving in the classroom to hand in my paper right as class is about to begin. All I still needed was to staple the pages together, but we always ended up doing that in class. I also miss studying in the library with friends, taking study breaks by running around outside, grabbing a buffalo wrap from the Blink, or posing for silly pictures with our computers. Ahhh the "good ol' days," ha, I know, it hasn't been long enough to be good old days yet, but eventually it will be! I wonder how long must you wait to be able to say, "in the good ol' days..."

Well anyways, I hope you have a splendiferous week!

Your friend,
Rebekah E. S.