Group Dynamics

I had my first ukulele lesson after school today (thank you, Heidi!), and since it was way! tooooooooo cold to leave my uke in the car today, I carried it in with my lunch and back pack. Once in my classroom, though, I couldn't just leave it in its case, and so during homeroom I brought it out.

My students must have missed the "ukuleles are cool now" memo, because the first question I got was,"Are you from Hawaii?" But a few bars of Over the Rainbow changed their tune, and soon they wanted to try it themselves.

As tempting as it may be, I've learned not to be the type of teacher who keeps all the fun stuff to myself, and I readily handed it over (if with a silent prayer that I would still be able to take my lesson on it this afternoon). I needn't have worried; everyone was very respectful, taking turns gently strumming the strings while imitating the chords they thought they saw me finger.

At last, the most dominant personality of the group took control. "I'm going to play No Type, and you're going to sing," she said. Then, noting my raised eyebrows, she added, "The clean version." While she strummed the open strings in rhythm, the rest of the kids circled around her and sang the lyrics in chorus. Behind my desk, I leaned back in my chair and watched their faces relax and shine as they performed for each other and themselves. It was a sweet and lovely moment.

The bell rang, and they handed me my ukulele and headed off to class.

AKA

Since I'm lucky enough to teach in the same school as my sister-in-law who shares the same last name with me, there is inevitable confusion when it comes to our phones, our rooms, and most often, our mail boxes. Over the years, I've learned to deal with it, as I'm sure Emily has, too, although there is always some moment of extreme confusion when someone calls and asks a question for which I have absolutely no frame of reference, and it can be a little annoying when I'm missing some handout that absolutely must go home today! 

Usually, though, when I receive something that I know is not intended for me, like, say, a class set of Art Magazine, I simply move it to the adjoining box, as I did earlier today. But I confess that I sighed with a little frustration later when I checked my box right before going home and found a card addressed to an unfamiliar student, Topher Z. So, with a frown and a shrug, I slipped it into Emily's box and breezed out of the office considering that unusual name. Topher? Where did that even come from? It must be short for something. Maybe...

And I turned on my heel to fetch the card for the student that I know as Christopher.

I Think That Was an Insult

"The famously delicate streets of Washington DC got some snow" was how Brian Williams put it on the Nightly News.

Hmmm...

After a kooky day of countless crappy commutes-- so many folks trying in good faith to make it to school despite treacherous roads littered with fender benders, some involving school buses, we find ourselves safely at home tonight, preparing to enjoy chicken with white gravy and biscuits.

AND, they've already called the two-hour delay for tomorrow.

Since I Missed Those Two Days Before Break...

Dear whoever thinks "reindeer poop" is a good holiday gift,

I don't agree.

Thanks for thinking of me, though!

Old Times There

I got a banjo for Christmas! (Fear not gentle reader! I also got some music lessons.) Predictably, I have been messing around with it every day since. That toasted pecan finish, those twangy strings, that drum skin face are all irresistible. Just picking around by ear, though, what tune do you think I found?

Dixie.

Coincidence? Ya'll be the judge and jury, heah?

What Old Friends Are For

I was facetiming with an old high school chum this evening. She lives in Colorado, and at first refused to accept the call, keeping her thumb over the camera so that it was nothing but an audio call. "I'm embarrassed for you to see that I'm still in my pajamas!" she told me, but when I reported that we were having a lazy day around here, too, she relented.

"Look it's snowing here!" she turned the phone to reveal a lovely landscape of new fallen snow and Rocky Mountains beyond. There was nothing but cold rain out the window here, and so we caught up with what had happened to each of us since last we spoke.

As we chatted, her dog came into the room, and she put him on the screen, so I, in turn, presented first our dog and then our cat. "Now who's that?" she asked when she saw the cat.

"Penelope," I replied.

"I thought you were going to name your next calico cat Matisse," she reminded me, and I laughed, because that was true about 20 years ago. "Remember?" she continued. "You couldn't wait until it did something naughty so you would be able to say, Cut it out, Matisse!"

Supply Side

I have a distinct memory of sitting in the back seat of our station wagon watching the little plates on the gas pump fall one after the other as my mom filled up the tank. It was 1974 and the Energy Crisis was in full swing. The price per gallon of gasoline in our New jersey town had recently topped fifty cents. At twelve years old, that seemed like an impossible amount to me; I remember shaking my head and thinking that a whole dollar would barely buy 2 gallons.

If that was one of my earliest economic recollections, six years later I got another lesson when I stayed with a friend and her family for a few days in Italy. In Europe, gas was three times as much as it was in the states, but I had flown there from our home in Saudi Arabia, and when her dad asked me about the price of gas in the Kingdom, I laughed when I told him it was about 28 cents a gallon. His outrage surprised me. "Everyone should be paying more for a commodity in such short supply," he fumed. "It should be a free market."

Today I feel lucky to be a person who rarely drives over 5 miles a day; I can go over two weeks without filling the tank. I'm also fortunate to be able to pay for gas whenever I want to take a longer trip, even when it's over four dollars a gallon like it was in 2008. And I understand that the price of a gas is a function of many things: economic, environmental, and political.

Even so, this morning when I filled my tank for less than 35 dollars? I did a little happy dance.