Light and Momentary

Refreshing

My kids love to go to science summer camps held near my in-laws' house. A week with the grandparents, in which their days are spent doing interesting things with smart kids -- works well for everybody. This year, though, the sponsoring organization moved registration from early January to late February. Registration was supposed to open at 8:00. I can't even guess how many times I've clicked "try again" since then in response to a "problem loading page" message. All the tiger mothers within a 30-mile radius must be pouncing. (NB: am not a tiger mother. My kids just seem to hang out with the children of tiger mothers.)

I am tempted to grumble. (Didn't they anticipate this?) I am not getting any work done at all, which is making me grumpy, so I will write a blog post instead.

I think about blogging all the time but I just haven't been doing it. I am not really pseudonymous enough to blog about work, I don't think, and work takes up acres and acres of real estate in my brain right now.

Oh, dernit, I'm finally connecting to the site and it's telling me I don't have permission to view the page -- the page to which its own internal search engine keeps directing me. Good thing it's Lent or I might fire off an irritated missive to their webmaster.

Do you know, after I wrote that paragraph somebody must have kicked the server or something, because it started working. This is a terrible post but I have been silent for almost two weeks, I think, so I am posting it anyway and skipping off to a meeting.

 

Not Uncertain

Oh, you guys, I gave ANOTHER exam -- that's two of them inside a week -- that was much more difficult for my students than I expected. I think I've gotten better at writing sneaky multiple-choice questions in which the wrong answers sound plausible. Either that or I am a dreadful teacher and I should go work at Wendy's. Sigh. Today's exam was double-plus-stinkified by some avoidable hassles: the person in the office who copied the exams didn't notice that the copier wasn't working right, so that about 20% of the students had an unreadable page or two. I forgot until after they'd started that I'd included three questions with more than five answer choices, and needed to interrupt them (twice!) to tell them how to handle those questions. And despite the fact that I'd told them clearly to prepare for a particular short-answer question, it flummoxed a number of them and I expect to get blowback about it.

SO. Instead of telling you even more about the stuff that is filling my brain at the moment I am going to tell you about my funny oldest son. He's on the Scholastic Bowl team this year, where (to hear him tell it, at least -- keep your saltshaker at the ready) he takes no prisoners. They had a meet tonight and it reminded me of the story I meant to blog after their last meet. For every European history toss-up question, Alex would smack the buzzer and answer coolly, "Otto von Bismarck." He did this four times in a row, and four times in a row he was wrong. His teammates ribbed him about this, but he is pretty much immune to ribbing. As the last match was racing toward its heated conclusion, there was another European history toss-up. "Otto von Bismarck," he announced in his I-may-be-wrong-but-I'm-not-uncertain voice. "Correct!" said the judge. His teammates, and his mother, thought this was a riot.

Maybe I'll tell my students they should guess Otto von Bismarck next time.

Paging Elastigirl

Hello out there -- it's been a long time. I have been working a lot of hours. Just a speedy update from the Gladly house:

1. I have pinkeye. I also have on hand a great remedy for pinkeye, the fast free non-irritating age-old remedy also known as human milk, but this is the first time I've ever tried to treat my own pinkeye. I need a lesson from Elastigirl on how to get the source closer to the target.
2. I often think it'd be useful to have Elastigirl's talents. I'll have to keep practicing.
3. I've been having this weird Christmas letter anxiety. I've mentioned the blog in my Christmas letter for the past few years, but I never know who's actually thinking, "Hm, maybe I'll check out Jamie's blog." This year I've been having this weird impulse to make my blog more like my Christmas letter, full of good cheer and funny kid stories and a slightly sanitized version of my real life (nothing dishonest, just with some of the rough spots airbrushed out), but there is a reason I only write one Christmas letter a year vs. a hundred-ish blog posts. Anyway, if any random uncles or pastors have stopped by the blog today to be greeted with the image of Jamie squirting herself in the eye with a freakishly elastic appendage containing warm body fluid -- um, welcome? Nice to see you here?
4. If it were up to me I would be horizontal right now, with a nighttime dose of pinkeye remedy doing its mighty mighty microbe-smiting, but I have to pick up my oldest from a school dance at 11. I am entertaining thoughts of making the trip in my hot pink fleece pajamas and my green fleece robe, but I think I'll tough it out and stay dressed.
5. My oldest? Has a learner's permit. And shaved today. I took him driving around the school parking lot one evening and he said it was a lot like a video game. Which alarms me.
6. The grammar police are going to string me up by my thumbs for producing that previous paragraph, which contains four sentence fragments and only one actual sentence.
7. Hey, maybe that will advance my Elastigirl skills!
8. The Behold conference is four weeks from today and I am so looking forward to it. Who else is going?