Quote for the Day 2/18/2010

At the lunch table today--

Jacob: I remember that the last time we had people each choose their own literature book, some people carried their book up front when they gave their oral report, and sort of waved it around and showed everyone what it looked like. I wonder if that's how I should do it.

Marvin: Well, you could say, "Here's my book Here's how this one looks. I know not every book looks like this one, but this is how this one looks. You might find one that looks different, because they're not all alike. . . . "

(The longer this nonsensical commentary went on, the funnier it got, and Jacob and I cracked up pretty royally, and Emily chimed right in.) When we sort of got control of ourselves, Emily said in a slightly injured tone:

"I was going to take my book up front and show it to everyone, but now I don't know any more if I want to do that."

I think Jacob was feeling the same way--a little annoyed that Marvin had so effortlessly made it all look like a very bad idea, when it had seemed like a pretty good idea just a few minutes earlier. All the same, he had done it with such a lot of good cheer and humor that feelings of annoyance were hard to hang on to.

For me, it was the best laugh of the week.

***************************

Our principal, Wesley, was on a trip to Ohio for the first three days of this week where he went to his friend Mark's funeral. Norma and I each taught some of his usual classes, and covered for him in other ways as needed. Several students made a few abortive efforts to take advantage of the situation with stolen liberties. (I was tipped off when I saw the last half of a jean-clad pant leg kicked high and disappearing into the lab with a desperate lunge at a time when everyone was supposed to be studying at their desks. I was teaching a class and keeping an eye on the learning center at the same time. I followed the pant leg into the lab and found the guilty guy and a female accomplice--gone to visit another student who was already working in the lab. I dispensed a few choice words and a promise to report this behavior, and they crept back to their desks and behaved better from then on--I think.) All in all, Norma and I were mighty glad to have our principal back today.

***************************

We're having our annual parent-teacher's meeting tomorrow evening. I'm not sure that this is a good time of year to do this, especially with a cold dark winter such as this one has been. We're all a bit tired of the situation and not in the best frame of mind to put on a reassuringly cheerful face for the parents. About four of us will be giving short recaps of portions of the Mid-Winter Teacher's Gathering. I'm supposed to talk on mentoring. As usual, at this stage I'm wondering what possessed me to agree to do this.

**************************

I have a "singing" menu to finish planning, a shopping list to finish, a house to get ready--and snow in the forecast this weekend to lend an air of uncertainty to the whole plan. Thank God for Marian, who is recovered from her cancer and able to help me again. She's a jewel who cleans without condemning, and knows better what to do without my telling her than I know what to tell her to do. It's a wonderful arrangement. She needs work and an income, and I need help and have an income to share with her.

************************

Hiromi knows exactly how I'm feeling if I hear the alarm go off and suggest to him that we just cancel the day and ignore the alarm. I haven't said that for a long time, but I did it again this morning. I got up, of course, and the day was not canceled, and it was a good day after all.

************************

Grant is pretty sure that inheriting his dad's compact frame is not a blessing when one is doing a job like he's been doing for the past two days. He's working on the recycling line at Stutzmans. The job consists of plucking certain kinds of recyclables from a wide conveyor belt moving across in front of several workers. The belt is wide, and being tall, or at least having long arms, is a definite advantage. That does not describe Grant, thanks to his Asian heritage. So he has to lean far over, and then heave what he picks up into a container on the other side of the belt. When it's paper he's picked up, the heaving does not go well, and having to place it precisely IN the container is enough to make a guy mad, according to Grant.

He sums it up by saying, "I'm pretty sure I won't be applying for a job on the recycling line." It was to be a three-day job.

So far I've resisted the temptation to . . . Oh well, that thing about finishing high school or not, and the kinds of jobs open to people who don't . . . . I guess we won't go there.

**********************

Hiromi is blazing a trail through the study and the tool corner of the sewing room and is drawing a bead on the utility room as well. Tomorrow he's heading for Mennos (local private thrift store to benefit our schools) with a load of stuff, among them a Children's Britannica set. He reports that our recycling dumpster is nearly half full since his cleaning marathon began the first of the week.

I am so proud of Hiromi and his cleaning/organizing prowess.

**********************

Today our Food Production class trundled over to Melvin Harold's and took some pictures for the yearbook outside their corral near the dairy barn. Nevin and Joanne passed by on the road, very slowly, with bemused expressions. They're both teachers, and, I'm sure they figured out pretty quickly what was happening, despite the oddness of the situation. I don't think Brandon had adopted his "turtle" pose yet, or they might have been mystified. It was his uncooperative response to a request to "kneel in front of the girls." He preferred squatting on his haunches and leaning forward instead of putting his knees on the dirt and "sitting"up straight. He complied in time to get several good shots.

*********************

I suggested that no more than three people work on planting vegetables in the lab today at the same time. Yesterday we had an unfortunate level of confusion that resulted in the leftovers of one kind of lettuce seed being dumped into the wrong seed packet, mixing there with another variety of identical-looking seed. This mixed seed was then mistakenly planted into a seedling pack that was labeled with yet a third variety of lettuce.

I didn't have any trouble convincing the students of the wisdom of limiting the number of people working in the lab at the same time.

Then we ran out of potting soil, and not everyone got to plant today as planned.

I didn't say it, but I thought about the fact that what looks on the one hand like making them do my work can, on the other hand, be cast in terms of letting them make mistakes on my dime.

Most of the time things go well, and I appreciate their help and am glad that they're gaining experience for their own endeavors.

*********************

One of the baby lambs died yesterday. Hiromi had reported from the beginning that the brown one seemed a lot weaker than the white one. On a cold morning he found it outside the hutch, dead--the first time he had seen it outside the hutch at all. We wondered if it got outside and couldn't get back inside, maybe getting too cold in its weak state. It was a good bit smaller than its twin, but seemed to be nursing normally, and we thought it would probably be fine. Both lambs were males, so there's no ewe lamb to save to replace Mara some day. Here's hoping she produces a female next year.

The white lamb cheers my winter-jaded heart. I saw him cavorting today as I got home from school, and then he ran over to his mother for a snack. The last I saw him he was very busy nursing, his tail flicking back and forth at a high rate of speed. I can't think of a prettier sight. The name is Isaac.

********************

This post started with giggling again at Marvin's lunchtime comments and ends now with remembering my frisky white lamb. I don't think I'll suggest canceling the day tomorrow, but I'd better get to bed if I want to start it as early as necessary.