[Belated] DPP Day 12: Timeless Classics

My eleventh grade has been reading several nineteenth-century classics this term, including Jane Eyre and Walden. I was slightly surprised earlier this semester when I learned they couldn't name a single historical event from the Victorian Era (or its American equivalent), so we spent two days creating a giant colourful timeline for our classroom wall. 

I have no idea what I did yesterday, but I am fairly sure it involved going to school and going home late in a state of exhaustion. Apologies for the missed post.

DPP Day 11: Sky at Night, Clouds at Night

Today, in a special turn of events, we managed to leave school before the sun had finished setting. We enjoyed seeing some amazing clouds in the parking lot at school, watched the mountains turn purple in the distance (beneath those same clouds) as we finished the commute, and were rewarded with a brilliant cluster of pink over a distant hill just as we parked in the driveway.

DPP Day 10: Too Cool to Skip School

Though I paused for a few meals today, I've essentially been grading essays and quizzes; designing tests, projects, and learning objectives; and teaching classes or attending meetings for sixteen hours. I started at 4.00 this morning and left school (after a meeting with the Board) at 20.00. This is unusually late for my current school, though I've endured much worse at my other schools.

All that to say that I've not had time for artistic insights, and today's photos reflect not clever images or beautiful scenery, but two of the most essential research tools in my classroom: my decades-old encyclopedias (the first encyclopedias some of my students have ever held in their hands) and my secondhand dictionaries (used almost every day, though the print is atrocious).

Aesthetically insignificant, but essential to my daily sanity, these are.

DPP Day 9: (Half) Night In

Tonight my spouse and I finally settled down to watch a film we've both been wanting to see for a good long time. It was cozy and the film was lovely . . . and then I became excessively weary and we decided the adventures of Spock and co. might be best spread over two nights, to facilitate attentiveness at work tomorrow.

The nights of movie marathons that begin at midnight are over. In retrospect, and considering my comfortable mattress, I'm not sure I mind quite as much as I'm supposed to mind.

DPP Day 8: Egg Noggin

My husband has many gifts, among which are several impressive culinary skills. Tonight he treated me to two glasses of delicious, homemade eggnog.

I am spoiled and delighted.

DPP Day 7: O! (or Yo!) Tree

Today my most excellent spouse, as a treat, bought me American cookies, and I enjoyed them.

I also stacked them on the piano to take a photograph, which is not exactly my usual response to cookies. However, they were delicious. Mint oreo cookies may actually be a fair trade for dark chocolate digestive biscuits.

[Belated] DPP Day 6: Q are you?

I wasn't going to post for yesterday, because although I took a lot of photographs, they all had small children in them, and I don't like to post photographs of other people's children on the internet.

Looking over my photographs, however, I found a crop that would preserve privacy while still allowing my blog viewers to enjoy the a fragment of the charm.

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the annual Wedding of Q and U. It is one of the major events on our school's calendar in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and featured a small kindergartner in the tiniest tuxedo ever seen playing Q opposite a beautiful small kindergartner playing U. U was walked down the entire hallway of the school by her father, the other kindergartners served as attendants, and the letters were joined under a flowered archway.

Here's Q's black tie and boutonniere:

Our headmaster read the vows, which included, of course, a quirky collection of relevant vocabulary words. No one from Qatar was invited.