Happy Valentines Day, Sonic Girl!

Thursday, 12 February 2009 20:26

So there I was in the classroom of a teacher who was actually the subject of the first documentary I ever had the pleasure of working on with KUAC, our local PBS station. Mrs. Ward is a peaceful teacher with a most fly hair do with her braids sectioned off and cornrowed close to her scalp, woven in to a sweet looking bun in the back of her pretty head, just to one side. As if that werent' sweet enough on Valentine's Day, we were enjoying a healthy green lunch, her with her snap peas, and me with a granny smith apple, while the children were going absolutely berzerk over their Valentine's cards and sugar assortment. Someone gave her a chocolate apple wrapped in tinfoil, which she promptly vowed to hand off to her daughters, in observance of the school's get healthy "biggest loser" contest. I refuse to be a part of the contest but I have good reason to watch what I eat. My teeth are in seething pain due to negligent care.

I was clicking and clacking through each macbook on the laptop cart, installing Flip software for the kiddos. Out of nowhere an adorable future football star popped and thrust a cookie in front of my face.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Sonic Girl!" Wow. Mmmm. A delicious little homemade sugar cookie topped with a unique reddish/pinkish, rudy colored frosting and sloppily smattered with a rainbow of sugary crystals.  Fast forward to me in the principals office requesting the afternoon off to go to the dentist. "I'm sorry but I am in excruciating pain. Would it be possible to take care of this computer stuff next week so I can go to the dentist?" Request granted. 

A couple of weeks ago the kids started calling me Sonic. At first I wasn't sure they were referring to me, but when I realized they were (in gym class) I thought assuredly that it was in reference to my hair. When I asked them why they called me "Sonic" they said, "Because! You're Sonic!" and moved their arms back and forth as fast as they could like they were running. Highly honored and amused, I thanked God for my blessings and went back to drills.

Ten minutes later, from underneath a partition where the gym had been sectioned off for the kindergarten kids eating lunch, a juice bottle went flying under the wall into the playing field where the other kids were. A tiny arm shot out from under the wall with brown wiggling fingers and a whimpering voice called out "MY JUUUUICE!"

I sprinted for the the bottle and fancifully kicked it back under the wall to the 5-year-old fingers, and jogged back to the endline. There were the boys, saying, "See that's why we call you Sonic! Cuz you're always doing funny stuff!!"

My it is nice to have fans! 

However, that same day I earned another nickname: "Torturer!" I guess in honor of my barking and whistling. I informed the first graders that if they wanted to see torture they could meet my coach and then I demonstrated a round of kick boxing and burpie intervals. They didn't care. It took me 3 weeks to shake off the name of "Torturer," but Sonic Girl stuck. :)