The 5 Rs

Today I spent a few hours with a friend who teaches the same thing I do, sixth grade English, but at another school in our county. Brains buzzing, we whiled away the time plotting out and planning for the next school year. Our conversation reminded me that the first part of summer vacation is for relaxing and recovering, and the second half is for recharging, regrouping, and reorganizing.

Just Dreamy

I dreamed about school last night. It was one of those weird anxiety dreams and so I wasn't prepared for the lesson (as if that would ever stop me!), and the students were not cooperating. To further complicate matters, I was in a completely unfamiliar classroom, standing on top of a cabinet and trying to write on a whiteboard that was placed all the way up by the ceiling. But the cabinet was too high and a little too far to the left, so I had to squat and reach way over to write. Well, I would have had to, except my lesson never started. I was planning to have the students and visitors, did I mention there were visitors, too? Parents were there also, for some reason. Anyway, I was going to do a group brainstorm about why reading is important and what kinds of things the group had recently read, but the dry erase marker wouldn't write, and then the students wandered off, although their parents stayed, waiting expectantly for the activity to begin, until at last the bell rang.

It wasn't a very restful night.

On This Date...

JK Rowling turns 46
Harry Potter turns 31
and Bingo the cat?
18 baby!
Now that's old!
Happy Birthday Bing!

For the Birds

The dry summer we are having has made the ripening tomatoes in the garden verrry appealing to the birds. They just peck through the wall of the not-quite-ready tomatoes and sip out the juice. Isn't that clever? How refreshing it must be for them. Last year, they didn't go near them, but now they don't even hesitate when I am standing right there.

I'd like to peacefully co-exist with the other creatures in the neighborhood, and I can share, even, but I threw out at least a dozen disintegrating tomatoes this afternoon. This is war, birds.

We Open Late

You can imagine how it is when some people, newly-met, learn that one is an English teacher-- I'll have to be careful of what I say, they might remark, although that response was much more common when I started teaching. I did have a friend once tell me that he would never write to me again if I ever corrected his grammar, and of course I agreed. (To be honest, it was worse when I was a cook and people would never invite me over for dinner.)

In fact, people who know me know that I'm not a language nit-picker. Particularly as a teacher, I err on the side of meaningful communication every time, because you can always fix your grammar mistakes. For my birthday, my mom gave me a copy of Grammar Rants by Patricia A. Dunn and Ken Lindblom, the premise of which is that by analyzing the denunciations of language critics we can educate students (and ourselves) about language and correctness and how they impact good writing.

Still, I giggled a little today when I read the marquis at a fast food restaurant. For want of a verb, the message was lost.

Apocalypse Later

This phrase can apply to so many things today, not the least of which is our movie viewing plans for Josh's last night here. We also went to the Newseum today, which was a nice companion visit to the Capitol. One of the many cool features of this museum dedicated to the press and its constitutionally guaranteed freedom is the daily display of a newspaper front page from each state. May I tell you, fellow beltway insiders, that very few of them even mentioned the debt ceiling.

The People's Office Building

We visited the US Capitol today and were fortunate to have a friend give us a "beyond the public tour" tour. She works for the Senate, so we stayed on the northside of the rotunda, and the insiders view of that place was fascinating. Starting with the fresco restoration project and carrying through to the floor tiles, picture frames, office assignments, stairways, balconies, and the actual chamber itself, "the Capitol" became a much more concrete place, even to this inside the beltway denizen. As we walked the halls and passageways, we saw Senators Boxer, Webb, Leahy, Rockefeller, Hagan, and Coburn, mere mortals, one and all.

I can't decide if the fact that our representatives are just people is heartening or not. I guess we'll all find out in the next couple of weeks.