a good day

North Carolina is playing Kentucky in basketball. College basketball season has arrived... and UNC is destined for greatness even with Hansbrough injured. Tis good to be a Tar Heel.

I refuse to let insommnia best me. I went over to a friend's for dinner. We had a lovely time full of delightful banter about ideas and politics and theology. And, we're going to have to continue our discussion of sisters. She has a sister who is 18 months older than she, too. And, our sisters' names are the same.

In my afternoon class, I had a breakthrough with some of the dynamics. It's as if I gained an outsider's perspective for a bit. I was aware of the interaction among, teacher and students and students and students. I could feel them get restless or get really involved. I could tell the difference between good noise and bad noise.

In my morning class, I had two moments that fueled me emotionally for the rest of the day. A girl leaned back and said, "Oh, now I get what we're doing." She promptly dug into the work. And, on the way to lunch, another girl handed me a carefully folded square that read "To: Mrs. M from: V". I opened it to find a very detailed picture of a spider and web rotating purple and black Sharpees. And, every-other letter was purple. M (purple) r (black) s (purple) . (black). I wonder if she did it during reading, writing or grammar. I'm partly honored to be the recipient of work that time intensive and partly chagrinned she's comfortable enough to hand me the evidence of her slacking in my class.

I applied to a job fair in a different system. It's a good system and not likely, but it'll be good experience.

I'm enjoying Larry Crabb's Shattered Dreams. And, I just embarked on Frank McCourt's Teacher Man; I think I'm going to love it.