What I've Been Up to Today

I started the day with emails to my brother and a good friend, a nun from my Catholic school days (see my other journal), with some news and ideas.  My father's wife received her diagnosis of Stage IIIB lung cancer on Election night.  They live several hours away, so there is little of a practical nature that I can do, but that didn't stop me from waking up at 6:00 a.m. with ideas for OTHER people.

I tinkered with two tests that I was giving later today, read email, and dug around for my Columbia River Gorge pictures for the Thursday Theme, which was focused this week on favorite photos from the past year.  I have lots of favorite pictures of places I've been, but I decided that maybe the CRG was the most powerful of all those places, and the one I am least likely to see again in this lifetime.

I did eventually get to work. My government class is loud and a little out-of-hand.  We have spent a lot of time in the past two months on the election and the kids seem to need to interject the same points over and over.  Highlight of that class as I tried to move on to issues of presidential authority: one young lady saying that she thought it was fine to sequester Japanese Americans in "work camps" post-Pearl Harbor.  Don't ask.

On to my honors world history class, a lunchtime meeting with a parent, and the preparation of (I think) a cool set of assignments for my 8th grade American history classes to get us through early French explorations of this continent.  It seemed to go all right when I tried it out a little later.  Then, finally, my other world history class.  I was going to take my walk then, but a student in the honors class had slept (!) through the morning and missed a big test, so I agreed to stay after school (which meant until 6:00 p.m.) so that she could take it --AFTER I told her she needs to set her alarm in the morning and stop relying on her mommy.

So much for walking.  It was pitch dark and raining when I got home, and I just didn't have the motivation to do my walking a second night in a row at the gym.  SO BORING.

Many political discussions throughout the day.  I have discovered,to my astonishment after three years in an Orthodox Jewish school, that several of the rabbis are far more politically liberal than I had ever imagined.  Most of the students and, apparently, their parents, were focused solely on Israel as The Issue in the election, but it turns out that at least some of the religious faculty take a broader view.  It's been an interesting couple of days.  One of the other non-Jewish humanities teachers had worked hard on the Kerry campaign and is devastated by the outcome; we talked some about decisions to become more politically active and our bewilderment at seemingly being so far to the left of the American mainstream.

I had dinner with my husband and daughter.  They both have tomorrow off and he says she is going to finish her college applications.  She actually started working on an audition tape this afternoon with her school voice teacher.  She is, however, far more interested in finding some way to become involved in gay rights issues.  I hope her interest lasts -- it's nice to see apathy in a teenager replaced by  a passion for justice.  I also hope she applies to college.

Then she and I veged out and watched The O.C. together, and now I have GOT to finish an assignemnt for tomorrow.  Just another day.