Just an Ordinary Day

I don't usually write much about my entire day, but once in awhile one of them might be worth taking a look at.  Not because of anything special or outstanding; just because it's good to take stock once in awhile. So, some of yesterday:

Started out on the tense side.  I had agreed to drive my daughter and another girl to the bus stop (15 minutes away); the other young lady got off to a late start and ambled out of her house without a care in the world.  I don't think she understood that the bus doesn't just wait around to see who shows up.  We made it, but without a second to spare.  If we hadn't, I would have had to add another 45 minutes of driving to my day, which was not on my list of things I wanted to do.

So I came home, discovered that poached eggs two days in a row is an unacceptable menu, played around online for awhile, and then spent an hour putting together some research and an outline for a student in my honors history class.  I have assigned a major project for the final exam, and some of my students struggle in a HUGE way with multi-part projects.

Went to work, knowing that I was going to be late in meeting with the 7th grader I tutor (he's newly from Israel and needs help with his English vocab and reading assignments), but when I got there, the 7th grade was nowhere to be found.  Off on yet another special project.  So I graded papers instead.

Taught two ninth grade world history history classes.  We have reached the topic of 19th century imperialism, which means that we will barely sqeak through World War I in the next week before it's time for their final presentations on World War II.  After class, I met with several students on Life Issues and, in a couple of cases, on actual academic work.  Then I came home to eat another fine meal: salad and leftover steak from the night before. And some Oreos: I've decided a little cheating is acceptable and, in fact, necessary, if I am going to survive one more day on this ridiculous diet.

The class I teach in the afternoon is on contemporary history and we are supposed to be working our way through Watergate.  However, we got completely off track and spent most of the class on Nicholas Berg.  One of the students claimed to have seen the video and says that Nick Berg's captors sawed his head off.  Is that possible?  I don't know.  I see that today's Tehran News says that the entire video is a fraud.  I haven't seen the video.  I have looked for it, but not too hard. 

Do I believe Tehran News?  CNN?  Donald Rumsfeld?  Anyone?

One of the seniors in the contemporary history class was stunned last month when I said that I seldom believe anything I see or hear on the news.  I was equally surprised to find a teenager so willing to accept as "the truth" whatever she hears. Unfortunately she is on senior project now, when we are reaching the reason for my skepticism; part of the Watergate fallout was its production of a generation that no longer takes at face value any statement made by a political figure.

At any rate, we live in a world of suspicion and hatred, and my little class is a microcosm of the whole.

I picked up my daughter, dropped her off at her math tutor's house, and fit in the first mile of my walk before picking her back up and running to the grocery.  The skies opened just as we got home -- luckily for me, because had we unloaded the gorceries a minute sooner, I would have been sure that I could have managed another couple of miles before the downpour.  We decided to go ahead and eat whenever we felt like it.  Just as I finished -- ricotta wrapped in eggplant that I found at the deli counter -- my husband showed up and made a real meal for the two of them. I watched the grande finale of 7th Heaven -- how ridiculous is that, to have a birth show with the dad, baby, and grandparents, but no mom? -- and went out to finish my walk, the rain having finally stopped.  Came home to find that the student on whose work I had started my day had called four times while I was out.  So I talked to her, and her mom, and finally crawled into bed with my books and papers.

So now it's another day.  The sky is darkening again and I'm off to search for the 7th grade and to see what I can convey about imperialism and Watergate, which are probably connected in some offbeat way.

Walked: 2 miles late at night -- the day got away from me again, partly because it rained endlessly.