1. First full week of teaching. I feel like I'm starting to find my feet and it's becoming less stressful and uncertain. 2. I'm still waiting for Alice in Wonderland to arrive, so my sixth graders are reading short stories while I pretend this was the plan all along. This week was Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, which was … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: Mongeese, Kiki, and Computers
Teaching
Friday Flotsam: Teaching, Napoleon, and Oz
1. Well, I made it through my first week of the new teaching job. It was overall easier than I expected; it felt like slipping back into a somewhat familiar routine, the same sense of just standing up and talking to the class. 2. That said, it did feel a bit like building a railroad … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: Teaching, Napoleon, and Oz
Saturday Flotsam
1. I seem to be missing Friday Flotsams quite a bit lately. These are confusing times. 2. My first year of teaching has officially concluded in a chaotic rush of a 'center cleaning day'. It was truly a life-changing experience, and I've learned an enormous amount even in a single year. I feel that, at … Continue reading Saturday Flotsam
Saturday Flotsam: Hodge Podge and Northern Lights
1. My first school year is almost done; just one more day of classes, then field day and a few odds and ends. It was certainly a learning experience, and I'm glad to have at last found a job that I feel I could make an actual career out of. The big test, of course, … Continue reading Saturday Flotsam: Hodge Podge and Northern Lights
Friday Flotsam: Various and Sundry
1. The weather is warming up, which means my middle schoolers were extra rowdy this week. I am increasingly convinced that children are, in truth, reptiles. 2. For recreation I started re-reading The Ball and the Cross for the first time in quite a while. Chesterton's way with words is of the sort that is … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: Various and Sundry
Friday Flotsam: 26 to 48, America Lists, and ‘Godzilla x Kong’
1. First and foremost is some pretty big life news: after much searching and many applications, I've been offered a full-time teaching job with a traditional Catholic, classical education school. The only slight catch is that it's, ah, rather far. I live in Metro Detroit, and the job is in Phoenix, Arizona. Which means that … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: 26 to 48, America Lists, and ‘Godzilla x Kong’
Friday Flotsam: Caesar and ‘Scarlet and the Black’
1. Starting a much-needed break for Easter time. Don't have much time left in school after that; only about ten or twelve class days. It's rushed by faster than I thought, and I've really enjoyed my first year teaching. Right now the plan is to figure out a way to keep doing it and earn … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: Caesar and ‘Scarlet and the Black’
Friday Flotsam: More Economics and Some Dante
1. Slowly recovering from being sick last weekend. Fortunately, we had Thursday off this week. 2. Monday was a special review / writing mastery day, so for one of my classes, at the students' request, I recited all the Presidents for them (I'd previously mentioned that I knew them all and promised to demonstrate one … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: More Economics and Some Dante
Friday Flotsam: ‘Short Circuit’, Sick, More Economics, and Lent
1. My tastes have been skewed in a 1980s direction lately. This week's movie night was Short Circuit (at least most of it; the copy I watched had a section missing that I couldn't find elsewhere, between when the jerk boyfriend shows up and the fight with the other three drones), about a military robot … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: ‘Short Circuit’, Sick, More Economics, and Lent
Friday Flotsam: US History, Nintendo Games, and Dialogue
1. My US History classes this week have been entirely consumed by summarizing the course of the Civil War, and we've only gotten to the end of 1863. That's after about two weeks of going over the lead-up to the war. There is just so much to go over, even from my relatively superficial knowledge … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: US History, Nintendo Games, and Dialogue
Serpent's Den 