Scottish dancing season

No, you can't shoot the dancers. Although as poorly as I've been dancing lately, it might be considered merciful to shoot me in the foot!

Today was just a show. The best thing you can say about my performance is that I fully embraced the old maxim about being confident in my mistakes. My sweet husband told me, "Unless somebody knew what the right way to do those dances was, they wouldn't have noticed any mistakes." Unfortunately, he does know how those dances are supposed to look when they're done correctly.

Must practice more. In spare time not taken up with 1) obsessing over my not-quite-spotless house but not actually doing anything to clean it, 2) grading student work that's backlogged, or 3) catching up on much-needed sleep...

LotR-fest 2.0

At seven in the morning, the faithful began to arrive, armed with cushions, blankets, coffee, and lots of junk food (which, they inform me, does constitute an essential food group when one is under eighteen).

8:02 a.m.: After some frantic running around on my part in search of a grand master key to open the conference center and not a few "one key to rule them all" jokes, we began watching the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Twelve hours and thirteen minutes, three pizzas, dozens of doughnuts, and one roll of toilet paper later, we finished the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

I'm still fascinated by the fact that kids will show up at school on a Saturday for nothing more than watching these movies, especially when many of them were going to the Georgia Tech game that evening. They already wanted to talk about some of the discussion questions I gave them on Friday, but we had to press on with the movie-watching.

As many times as I've seen those films, I still find something new every time I see them. Over the Labor Day weekend, I watched the original Star Wars trilogy with my nephew. It was his first time to see it, and he was glued to the screen. I can't wait till he's old enough to see Lord of the Rings.

Maybe by then I'll be ready to do another movie marathon.

Back to school, back to routine

Well...sort of back to routine. I figured out that between August 9th and September 9th, I'll have spent 13 nights sleeping away from my own bed. (And there's a ginormous tree branch poked into the roof like a toothpick into a cupcake above my bed. I'm thankful that I was not in that bed when the tree branch met the roof.)

So. Year 2 of Fantasy as a Genre. Still full of students that could kindly be called "behavior problems." They keep it fun, and they seem to listen better than last year's class did. Lord-of-the-Rings-a-pa-looza is in ten days; it promises to be thrilling.

Ninth grade class retreat is this week. I actually got my sub plans in early -- that will never happen again! I'm looking forward to the two days up at camp, especially because I think my homeroom is actually going to have a decent skit this year.

As for the Brit Lit classes, two have an unusual number of girls in the section. I've never had a section where the girls outnumbered the boys, but it's been interesting. I've maintained for the past couple of years that by the time they're juniors, the girls at school get reticent in classes with the boys, particularly when the boys are obstreperous. (There are quite a few obstreperous boys in this junior class, but none of them are in my sections yet.) As a result, it's often more difficult to get the girls to speak out and take leadership roles in the course. It could just be the blend of personalities in my sections this term; so far, however, the girls are being slightly dominant in class discussion. My holds-degrees-from-two-women's-colleges self is loving it. :)

There's a lot that's positive right now, although I feel like my life for the past eight months was taken over with infertility issues. Finally, finally, finally, we're moving forward with treatment, and there may be a light at the end of this tunnel. Even if there's not a light, there's at least forward motion, and that's better than standing still.

Saying goodbye

Summer, 1998. While we were visiting my godmother in Chicago, she pulled out a copy of "this great book about a little boy who finds out he's a wizard and he goes off to wizarding school." It came highly endorsed by her fifth-grade class.

I, as a soon-to-be-freshman in college, wasn't all that interested, but my youngest sister (a.k.a. the non-reader) took it and read it. When I came home for fall break, she followed me around the house to explain Quidditch and Hogwarts. She'd never gotten excited about a book like that before, and I read it because she was so enthusiastic.

And I was hooked. This Harry Potter kid was a new King Arthur or Luke Skywalker. I recognized this story and I loved this new storyteller's way of framing it with imagination and wit and humor.

Now, almost ten years, four midnight release parties, five movies, seven books, and one elective course later, it's time to close the books. The story's over. No more speculation about the characters' ultimate fates or unanswered questions. A new generation of readers, one that knows the ending and likely will have seen the movies first, will enjoy the books in a completely different way.

For most of us who've loved Harry and his pals, the end is bittersweet. Sure, I wanted to know how it all turned out, but seeing the series end is like closing any chapter in one's life: you might return for a visit, but you can't go back and live it over again.

What made it so great? I don't think it's the vividly imagined and richly detailed world Rowling invented for her characters to inhabit (although it's certainly a draw), or the fun of seeing adolescents with magical powers. I believe it's the epic struggle between good and evil that only, ultimately, can be won by love and self-sacrifice. That's why Harry, Charlotte, Aslan, Frodo, and other heroes and heroines involve our emotions so deeply -- their stories, no matter how seemingly fanciful, are powerfully true.

As I closed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at a quarter past four this morning, I wiped away a few tears. I'm looking forward to the fall term to see what my newest crop of fantasy lit students thinks about how Rowling chose to end the series.

And I wrote a small note of thanks to my godmother, who gave my sister the book, and my sister, who gave the book to me.

What's in the water?!

Is everyone around me having babies or what?

Two of the girls in my small group are expecting. My sister-in-law had a baby girl two and a half weeks ago. Two of the girls at work are expecting, too. And I just got an email from one of my high school buddies announcing the birth of his daughter last Thursday.

Maybe it's just that I'm at the age now when all my friends are starting to have families of their own, but it sure seems to be epidemic right now. Instead of talking about books and movies and going out to eat, now conversation revolves around little people and the things they do (and parents really are uninhibited when they're talking about kids...there is nothing they won't say) and we go over to people's houses. Life is just...different...now. Not in a bad way, though.

And all those babies are cute, especially since nobody's asked me to change a diaper yet. :)

Lions and tigers and...parents, oh my

My mom and dad are in town this weekend for a brief visit, so we've been spending Quality Parental Time.

Things for Which I Am Profoundly Grateful:
1. My parents and my in-laws get along well with each other. We all had lunch together today, and it was really fun.

2. My parents respect our space. Seriously, they're good guests, and I gather from some of my friends that parents don't always make good company in their children's homes.

3. That the older I get, the more I truly enjoy spending time with my parents. I don't feel obligated to spend time with them; I look for ways we can get to spend time together, and so do they.

4. My husband is a gracious and generous host. Just the way that things are, his family is all in town, and my family is all out-of-town. Way out of town. So when they do come to visit, they stay with us, which can be pretty intense -- people you don't see very often and then when you do see them, it's a 24-7 sort of visit. And bless his heart, he just rolls with everything and has a good time. He tells me that he enjoys my family. That's true love for you right there.

Shaggs and shoes

The Greatest Man in the World is upstairs listening to My Pal Foot Foot.

If you've never heard of My Pal Foot Foot, then you are missing out on what's possibly the worst band ever to have existed: The Shaggs. Really. They're so bad that it's almost good.

I'm down here searching for shoes...both shoes for my sister's wedding in August (yay!) and for my Highland dance competition at the end of the month.

I like these for Sister's wedding (pending her approval, natch) dyed light gold. As for the dance shoes, no clue. I'm hoping my current pair of ghillies will last through the competition, but it's probably a good idea to have a Plan B in case they don't.

Oh, and Foot Foot don't live here no more.

The only sane person in the room looks crazy

A few years ago, my sister and I had a conversation wherein she repeated to me this little gem of pithiness: "When you're the only sane person in a sea of insanity, it's hard to convince yourself that you aren't the crazy one."

True.

I just finished reading The Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins and I want every single administrator, teacher, parent, and student at my school to read it as well. As I read the book, I thought to myself, My gosh, I know all of these kids. And that thought really frightened me.

I think sometimes, as someone who graduated high school nine years ago, that I'm more likely to fall into the trap of thinking that school now is the same or quite similar to school when I was a student than someone who graduated twenty or thirty years ago...and I'm wrong. I knew kids when I was in school who definitely were overachiever poster children (aforementioned sister and best friend among them), but there wasn't a culture, at least not as far as I could tell, of overachievement. Maybe it's because I was a militant underachiever for the first eighteen years of my life, or maybe it's because the kids at my high school were applying to Auburn and Alabama, not the Ivy League.

But now, where I teach, the culture of superstardom is endemic and it's heavy. I remember the student I taught my first year who seemed to be killing herself with extracurricular activities and advanced classes as a junior. When she came to me and asked that I sign off on her application to run for student council co-president, I told her that I was doing so with serious reservations because of her other commitments; I felt strongly that she wouldn't be able to juggle everything successfully.

She ran and she won, and she did a terrible job as co-president because she didn't have the time to keep up with her coursework (got a bad grade in a math class that kept her out of her first-choice college), take large roles in every single school play, be a managing editor for the paper, and devote energy to student council.

I asked at the time, and I'm still asking three years later, why didn't we as responsible adults tell her to stop? Why don't we have some sort of policy in place about extracurriculars and leadership positions like we do with AP courses? If we don't let our students take more than three APs in a year, why in the world do we let them play two varsity sports AND have officer positions in five clubs AND the lead in the musical AND be retreat leaders?

Because, the Older and Wiser Heads told me, that's how things are here. Handle the pressure or quit. We like our superstars. We make them our poster children every year. That's our standard of excellence.

Graduates tell me overwhelmingly that the most important thing they learned in their years at this school was time management -- how to schedule their lives at a breakneck pace for four years. And to me, that's sad.

The head of the guidance department said once that parents want to put the bumper sticker on their car that says "University of Georgia Parent -- but the Kid Turned Down Harvard, Stanford, and MIT." Not that it's fair to blame parents or teachers for the whole thing, though, because it isn't. The kids put lots of pressure on themselves. They have to be the best at everything all the time, or it isn't worth doing.

Reading this book sharpened my resolve to homeschool our (eventual) children -- I really don't want my family to believe that this lifestyle is normal or desirable.

But it's probably not good enough for me just to advocate for my own family. I've been unsettled by seeing this trend for the past several years, and my desire to be an agent of change for my own community has now crystallized. I might just be the person who everyone else thinks is crazy, but I'm betting there are enough other sane people floating in the crazy ocean who will agree and sign on.

Partying like rock stars

So, the SMC Alumnae Club of Georgia (The Few! The Proud! The REAL (Southern) Belles!) hosted a Real Live Alumnae Author Saturday afternoon at Coffee Buy the Book here in beautiful historic Roswell.

We don't have all THAT many events. The only problems with graduating from a women's college in Indiana and having an alumnae club in Georgia are 1. Not many women from Georgia go to colleges in northern Indiana and 2. What with its being a women's college and the graduates being 100% female, a great many of the alumnae are full-time mothers and as such are really, really busy. Usually, if we get fifteen people at an event, it's a big success.

One of the ongoing club events is a bimonthly book club that's been going for about two years. Back in the fall, Mary Beth Ellis '99 contacted us to see if we'd be interested in having her come speak to the club about her new book, Drink to the Lasses, which is a humorous account of her years at Saint Mary's. Of course we accepted enthusiastically and scheduled her appearance for this weekend. We invited the entire alumnae club, not just the book club members, and promised free refreshments and wine.

Since I'm the board member who lives the closest, I was in charge of said refreshments. (I think I might take on a side job as a party planner -- I seem to find myself doing this sort of thing with alarming frequency!) I hit Trader Joe's on Friday afternoon for a case of Two Buck Chuck. There is something so darn satisfying about being able to buy twelve bottles of perfectly good wine for under thirty dollars. I got the nibbles from Edible Expressions, and added to the list of Things I've Learned is that a caterer's opinion of what constitutes "serves 10-12" and my opinion of the same thing are wildly at odds. Serves 10-12 what? Football linebackers? Sumo wrestlers?

Oh well...better to have too much than too little.

Out of the thirty women who RSVPed yes, twenty-eight showed up. We drank a little wine, had a lot of really delicious food, and thoroughly enjoyed Mary Beth's readings and presentation. Although the book's probably got a certain meaning for women who are SMC grads, it's really about college and self-discovery and making the transition from childhood to adulthood, told with unflinching candor and wry humor. (I've written one too many blurbs for annotated bibliographies.)

Anyhow, very cool event, very cool author, and very cool book. Pick one up off of her website or from Amazon and have fun!