Rihanna

Dear Judith,

I'm frantically trying to blog while on my lunch break, but I have a feeling that this one won't be finished before I need to get back to work.

A few months ago, Belle left my class. She was a beautiful girl and not a day passes that I don't miss her. About a week after she left, Rihanna joined my class. She's Korean and has the same name as Belle (though I refer to them differently on here).

I quickly became attracted to her quick wit and easy laugh, though for the first few weeks, I had to guess what she was saying because she knew very little English.

She came to Outdoor School at Managaha with her mom, and had her first experience with the ocean. She loved it.

Rihanna is a great dancer. I don't know where she finds these dances but she's absolutely hilarious. I used to think that I could never love a kid who came halfway through the year as much as I loved the ones who had been there the whole time, but she proved me wrong.

I don't think about what my life will be like without her. I've spent literally hours laughing at her antics. She fits into my class, and into my life, perfectly, and this Rihanna would never get back together with Chris Brown is he beat her.

When she doesn't hear what you say, she cups her hand next to her year. When she giggles, she puts her hand in front of her mouth. When she is pretending to be scared, she shakes like a leaf. She loves to pretend that her fingers are a spider crawling all over me. From the second she walks in the door until the moment she leaves, my world shines a little brighter.

I can't imagine loving anything or anyone more than I love my kids.