Not too much in the news today that I feel an irresistible urge to weigh in on except perhaps this. Scientists are a step closer to nuclear fusion, which would be an amazing thing, unlimited cheap energy from seawater, it would totally save the environment and the economy. That is, it would be an amazing thing if it were actually true, but “a step closer” is not the same as “We’ve got it!,” and besides, we’ve heard this stuff before.
Prague Gets Into the Sochi Spirit
So, let me tell you about my day. It started off with a row, Isabel had lost her bag with all her ballet clothes, and I suggested to Helen that maybe we should take this as a sign and just let her quit ballet, saving some money, freeing up some time and I don’t think Isabel really cares. She was having none of it and laid into me for being an evil father who doesn’t care about his kids’ activities. But, she had to go to work so that didn’t last long.
Took out the garbage and recycling, watered the plants, and finished -yes, finished – my next book of poetry, “155 Sonnets.” I’m really proud of it. Anyway, getting that one and the other recent one, “Pink Snow” onto Amazon and Kindle is my goal for the weekend.
Then I had my 7th graders, and I walked into the room without a clear plan. There was some stuff on the board from an earlier class, in Czech, and I thought “Why don’t I just ask the students questions about that and translate gradually into English.
I was shocked. Not a damned one of them knew who wrote “War With the Newts. (a great work of Czech literature by Karel Čapek, 1936, a satirical novel about the rise of Fascism)
With the 2nd 7th grade class, where I’ve exiled all the bad students to the back of the room, I just read everybody’s Tarot cards, which is always a popular lesson, but not really a great one, and I can only use it once in a very great while, like, say, once a year.
Picked up Isabel from school but H called me on the was to say tomorrow’s lesson at the Iranian school was canceled, which I’m very happy about, but they wanted to reschedule, which led to a series of phone calls, and the whole thing didn’t get sorted till much later, and we wound up being almost late for ballet, which was awkward because we had to borrow clothes again.
During the ballet lesson, went and bought flowers (live, in the dirt, because I feel cut flowers are a rip-off and a scam, they die in a day or two) for Valentine’s day.
When we got home from ballet, I was tired and ready to stay in for the evening but Sam immediately reminded me that I’d promised to take him to Letna Park, where they’ve got an “Olympic Village” set up, with skating rink, a sliding hill, a winner’s podium for taking photographs, and a big screen TV where we watched the Czechs get stomped on by Sweden in ice hockey. In the end, it was only 4-2, but at one point Sweden was leading 4-0, and I felt a great empathy with the citizens of Denver. It was cold and I was glad when it was over. So was Isabel.
(the good news: the ballet bag was eventually found, it was at her school after all)
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