Nous Allons Voyager

My 7th grade niece is taking French I this year, a class which is, as her teacher frequently reminds her, a year-long course. My niece is also a distance learner, and learning a completely new language virtually has been a bit of a challenge. Fortunately, both Heidi and I took French in high school, and so we have volunteered to do some zoom tutoring. 

Personally, I am thrilled by how much of the language I have retained all these years later. Despite struggling to recall where I left my keys and wallet 2 minutes ago, French verb conjugations, nouns (along with their feminine and masculine articles) and prepositions all roll off my tongue without a second thought.

Back when I was learning French, having the privilege to travel made learning the language very relevant. Although I never considered myself a fluent speaker, you bet I could read and understand enough to get myself around Paris and Geneva. But my niece is stuck in Atlanta, and when her year-long course began in August, the prospect of traveling anywhere was dismal at best. 

Even so, with every assignment we do together, I get a hankering to go and speak French somewhere. Montreal and Quebec, perhaps? Surely Canada won't keep us out forever! Maybe this summer (or next?) the three of us can pack our bags and head north.

 Comment dit-on ROAD TRIP?

Annual Event

As is my custom when the Academy Award nominations are announced, I printed out a list of Oscar nominees yesterday and began gleefully checking off any film or performance I had already seen. Truth be told? It was a paltry handful. Thank goodness for Nomadland, A Promising Young Woman, and Mulan; a little bit of girl power went a long way this year. (But definitely not as long as it should go.)

Scanning the very few checked boxes, I started to scold myself a bit. In any other year, I chided, thinking of all the movies I would have seen by nomination time. 

But of course I stopped, because in any other year since 2004, the Oscars would be over by now, and our traditional family movie-going, dinners, and getaway only a pleasant memory as our thoughts turned to Spring Break and beyond. And obviously there's no question that this year is not just any year. 

So I took another look at the list with appreciation for those few good movies I'd seen and the promise of all the ones I would see between now and April 25, when I win the family Oscar pool! (Because why not? It's been a crazy year.)

Where He Is Now

It must have been the eyes I recognized first-- despite his face being two-thirds covered with a mask, his eyes were unmistakable. And he nodded when those eyes met mine as he rolled past me on his skateboard; he knew me, too. Then, when I called his name, his eyes narrowed as I'd seen them do so many times, and I knew his lip was curling beneath the mask as he skated past without a word or a backward glance.

"Aw," I said to Heidi, as we continued on in the same direction. He turned around about 50 yards ahead, and glided off to the side, stopping where would have to pass him again.

"You knew that was coming," Heidi told me.

I called his name again and waved. This time he looked up and waited for me to get there. "How are you?" I asked.

"Good," he nodded.

"How about school?"

"It's okay." He shrugged. "Virtual."

"The other teachers are going to be so excited that I saw you," I told him. "Do you have any messages you want me to give them?"

He mentioned two of the team by name. "They were cool," he said.

I ignored the implication that the rest of were not. "Well you look great!" I continued, and it was true: his eyes were clear; his clothes were clean; his body was relaxed. "Come on by and see us when you can. We always want to know how you are."

"Maybe," he allowed. "I think I might move back here for high school next year."

"Can we get a picture?" I asked. "I want to show everyone at school."

He nodded, and I stepped over. He pulled his mask down, and we smiled. I know mine was genuine, and I want to believe that his was, too.

Plagues Upon Us

Rather than outside in the breezy March sunshine, the annual spring meeting for our community garden was held on Zoom yesterday morning. To be honest, it's never been my favorite part of gardening there: so often the presentation and approval of the budget and bylaws devolves into a bit of a scolding session, and this meeting was no exception. 

Particularly unpleasant was when, while discussing a bit of controversial rule-smithing, the membership chair unmuted, and brandishing the waiting list for plots, assured us all that if we didn't care to conform to expectations, 150 of our fellow citizens would jump at the chance to get their gardens planted by May 15. (Now June 1-- score one for the democratic process!)

Later in the call, the question of "brown space" came up. Were our gardens supposed to be at least 30 percent clear of growth or no more than 30 percent unplanted? 

"It's at least," one of the chief gardeners confirmed. "We made the rule 17 years ago because of the cicadas. Well, really it was the rats. There were so many cicadas for them to eat, that the rat population in the garden exploded, and they were everywhere. If there was no brown space, a plot would be infested with rats burrowing and breeding under the plants."

Silent gasps of alarm lit up the digital gallery of gardeners, myself included, because this is the year that Brood X will emerge again, just as soon as the soil warms up to 65 degrees. And if a pandemic and billions of cicadas weren't enough, the thought of battling hoards of rats, too, was more than a little daunting.

All in Good Time

I needed a key cut, some lightbulbs, and super glue, so yesterday afternoon I celebrated the end of the work week by heading out to the big box home improvement store right after school. On a Friday afternoon, the place was not crowded at all, and the unspoken promises of repair and improvement drew me up and down the aisles long after I'd found the items I came for. 

Eventually, I made my way out to the garden center and was surprised to find a wide selection of herbs and annuals. So many years the plants are pretty picked over by the time I get to shopping for them; I was tempted to fill my cart right then. The string of 70 degree days we have enjoyed this week made it seem like the time was right to plant the containers and hanging baskets that we enjoy so much in the warmer months of the year.

But I knew better: the danger of frost in these parts extends to mid-April, and starting things too early, no matter how much I wished it was a good idea, was not a risk I was willing to take.

Who knows what might be lost when I shop again in April? But it doesn’t matter— my baskets will be lovely, as they always are. 

Soft Opening

I welcomed my last group of in-person learners this morning. Our hybrid concurrent block schedule means that I'm only in the same room once a week with most of the kids who opted to return to the building. The rest of the time they are virtual along with the majority of their classmates. 

"How has actually being here at school been so far?" I asked them.

"Good!" they nodded with mild enthusiasm. 

"Well it sure is nice to see you!" I told them in return.

A hand shot up. "Do you know when spring break is?" 

"It starts two weeks from today," I answered without hesitation.

He looked as relieved as I was.

One More Pivot

Just as the students were arriving for their first day in the building this morning, some sort of HVAC catastrophe had the halls outside my classroom roaring like an airport runway. With my door closed, the thunder was manageable, and when the noise quit, I assumed it was fixed. 

Not so fast, though! The principal knocked on my door a little while later. "We're going to have to move your class down the hall while they work in the ceiling to replace the part," she told me. "It's for safety reasons. Have the students pack up." 

In another time, the request might not have seemed so complicated, especially since there were only 4 kids in the room with me. But concurrent teaching and all its attendant technology had me dismantling my carefully calibrated set-up: unplugging several cables, turning off the SMART board, and leaving my extra monitor and the webcam and mic behind. 

"We'll be back on the call in a minute!" I told my virtual students and led these brand new students to an unfamiliar classroom with only laptop and iPad in hand. With no other choice, I propped up my laptop on a student desk, almost as if it was the fifth student in the class, and taught from the front of the room.

Oh, the lesson went fine, and it was actually quite liberating to get up from behind my fortress of a teaching station and move around a little. By the end of the class period, the repairs were complete, and I was able to return to my classroom and reconnect the whole apparatus before the next class began... 

...and dream of a time when the room is filled with kids agin, and all that technology is no longer necessary to do the job.