I LOVE YOU, SHEELA!!!!!!!!!!

as if getting to move to kathmandu wasn't lucky enough...as if doing all kinds of cool things, seeing tons of amazing things wasn't fortunate enough...as if having a cook and a house cleaner wasn't enough to make me pinch myself...now i have a teacher's assistant (t.a.) named sheela. she's wonderful. dreamy. so good i can't quite believe it...really. i share her with another english teacher next door, but sheela makes me want to weep...on her shoulder! she's nepali AND efficient. her english is excellent; she knows where everything is, trains me on lincoln protocol, runs off photocopies, will check papers, will record grades, will take attendance, sub, stand in, clean the classroom and wipe my nose when i have the sniffles...i bet. what have i done to deserve this??! my favorite sheela moment so far, and there are many already in just 4 days working together, is when she came in the classroom the first day and told me she was in over the weekend cleaning and organizing my classroom. blink blink... ok, i guess there's a second part to this...then she asked me what colors i wanted on my bulletin boards. uhh...i'm not picky, sheela...you choose...you're reeeally going to do my bulletin boards?? ok. so, she comes back with red paper...lincoln school colors are red and black and then proceeds to wonder how she should decorate them. i have a meeting and must head downstairs, only to come back an hour later to sheela block printing the borders of my bulletin boards!!! she has paint out, a roller, a wooden block and has been experimenting with colors. miss janice (i've since rectified the 'miss' part), do you like this or this color? i thought this would match the curtains better! uhhh...ok. so she does the board and i think it looks great. another teacher meeting passes and i come back in the room and she has changed the paper because she wasn't satisfied...she found a different wood block and redid the whole thing. uhhh...ok. I LOVE YOU, SHEEEEEEEELA!  she's the best...i'm thinking of adopting her, except, i will have her daughter in grade 9. tricky. in any case i feel like the luckiest teacher in the world...or certainly in the himalayas! oh yeah, and tomorrow...she will hang up visuals on the boards and around the classroom. hoooooray! lots of love, j