Keeping on...

12 days since my last post in here. It's funny but when I was working for the Feds I had n problem finding time to update the thread. Now that I'm teaching I go for days and days without finding time. Someone needs to explain to the GOP that teachers work 8 to 12 hour days almost non-stop until summer time. Every summer since I started this gig I have needed the first month just to relax from being always on call. By the time the school year starts up again I finally feel ready for it. A week after the start I am exhausted all over again.

I am painfully aware of how good I have it. Many of my co-workers are working mothers. They have to work as hard as I do then go home and start their home job. I get to go home and take a nap. Truth be told they are better at the teaching job when you look at what we are SUPPOSED to be doing. I have it easy with the repeaters because I can move more slowly and nobody has great expectations about my efficiency and success rate. I get the feeling they are happy to have someone who keeps the kids distracted and out of the way.

Today my 10th graders finished reading Josephina Niggli's The Street of the Cañon. They were dissatisfied because the story wraps up with so many questions unanswered. Thanks to movies and TV they expect every story to finish with all the questions answered. They don't like to have to figure out the "rest of the story" for themselves. "Do they marry?" "Why did he go to San Juan Iglesias?" "Does Sabrita know who he is?" All I can offer is, "What do you think?"

Wednesday I went to see the doctor as follow up to my surgery. He asked me how it felt and I vented about the ongoing pain. His answer? "That's very good!" He was serious. He is very happy with my progress. That makes one of us. As he explained it there will be a time when the nerves and their associated muscles finally get back to work. And when those nerves begin to receive messages for the first time in a long time they will hurt. He's right. He did tell me to start trying to work with my guitar. I do not expect to be able to play very well for a long time but he said it is time to start training the fingers in the necessary movements. It's going to take a long time to teach my finger tips to get used to the strings again.

Thursday was Wakana's birthday. She's 54. Another year and she qualifies as a senior citizen and gets head of the line privileges and free tuition at the university. I made a collage of pictures of Neko, a gift certificate to Ross (a local store), and the movie Titanic in Japanese. Then I took her to dinner at Table 35 for slab-o-meat (our euphemism for steak). She had steak grilled with a paste of miso and almonds and I had coffee rubbed flank steak. Because we are an Asian household (more or less) we do not eat large quantities of meat and what we do eat is in small pieces mixed into stews and curry so it is a treat to get slab-o-meat.