Hmmm

Well, I'm not doing the best job of maintaining this, but I am setting a goal to update it at least twice a week. Didn't do so hot with that last week, but this is a new week, and I shall succeed. :-)

Went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls on Saturday in San Diego. It was quite a good show; well-narrated, and conveniently arranged for self-pacing. The second batch of scrolls is supposed to be in place sometime during the second week of October. Some very nice photography on display, as well. It's always somewhat mysterious to me how compelling things such as the scrolls can be. It seems no one really has a claim on them...and yet everyone has a claim on them.

Thank God for our recent rain! It was nowhere near enough to counter our record-setting dry year...but it was glorious while it lasted.

School is OK this week thus far. I'm in meeting hell this week, but it's my hope that most of these will actually be productive. It's just unfortunate that they all happen to be scheduled during the same week.

Talked to my cutter, apologized, had a good response. She's too nonchalant about it for my comfort. I'm not happy when they wear it like a badge. If there's a fresh occurrence, I'll have more to say to her about it. At least the door has been opened, and it's swinging in both directions.

I've had a chronic truant already -- she only ditches my class. She was suspended today for it, but events have contrived to prevent me from talking directly to her these past few days. Supposed to have a meeting with her tomorrow. I hope having a candid conversation will lower her defenses some.

In other news, I'm getting to teach To Kill a Mockingbird again for the first time in over five years. It's a love affair all over again! Lord, what gorgeous, hilarious, powerful book! May my fervor be contagious, and may the sophomore immunity to hard-but-good literature lose its power of resistance! My new motto: What Would Atticus Do?

Seriously contemplating...

...attending the public memorial service for Madeleine. Waiting for the exact date to be announced, but the family said it would be around her birthday (which is Nov. 29). NY is a long and expensive flight away, and I'd have to take personal days for it, but I just might go for it. I'm not one to make many pilgrimages, but 25 years of input to the soul is difficult to ignore.

Just a thought, for now.

School -- Week 2

Well, really, it's only the first full week, but it's sort of the second week. I'm enjoying getting to know my this year's kids. Random bullet points of victories and retreats:

• I've already got about half their names down (not too bad for 150 students)
• I've already blundered and called a few by their siblings' names (d'oh!)
• I've already moved too quickly with one student who incidentally revealed herself to be a cutter and I inadvertently called attention to her methodical arm slashes in front of another student. It was a gut reaction, and I couldn't call it back in time. (Dammit, dammit! I think I'll apologize tomorrow, let her know my concern, and suggest some creative outlets to replace the destructive one).
• I already have some 300 essays to read and/or grade. (questioning the English teacher decision, yet again)
• New L.L. Bean shoes finally arrived today (took 12 days! gasp!). I'm hoping they'll help with my aching feet.

Off to bed. Must be early to rise.

Requiescat In Pace

This is it. I'm going in. After toying with the idea for several years now, I'm taking the blog plunge. Why now? It may sound strange, but it's because my writing hero has died.

Madeleine L'Engle died Thursday, September 6, 2007. Her passing is a seismic event in my life. I was first exposed to her work via a radio dramatization of A Wrinkle in Time, aired on KVPR from Fresno. In junior high, I found the book in our school library, and it was off to the races! From that point on, I read everything of hers I could get my hands on. I still have not read all of her 63 books, but I'm getting close.

She saved me, in many respects, and I'm learning as I troll the nets and blogosphere that I'm not the only one. She never forgot what it was to be a stupid, gawky teenager. She never forgot what it was to be kid for whom the imaginative sphere was more real than the adult 'reality.'

She preached against hero-worship, something I really needed to hear back then. She talked about needing to notice our heroes' clay feet before we put them up on pedestals. She was my hero. She was human. She had clay feet, too. But she taught me to live and to not despise my own intelligence or difference. She taught me that art and writing and music and intellect and soul and theology and science and math all go hand-in-hand in universe.

She taught me joy, joie-de-vivre, and the beauty of work -- good, hard, physical and mental work. She taught me to listen for the music of spheres.

It's hard to put into words how much she will be missed. Thank God she wrote. I have 63 books to revisit when I need certain grounding.

Oh, to hear the conversations she's having right now with Einstein, Bach, Jesus, and her beloved Hugh! May the souls of these faithful departed rest it peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them!

As she accepted the Margaret Edwards Award, which is the American Library Association's Lifetime Achievement Award For Writing in the Field of Young Adult Literature, in 1998, she said this:

"Someone said, 'It's all been done before.'
"Yes, I agreed, but we all have to say it in our own voice."

This blog is begun in her honor, as I attempt to say it in my own voice.