'twas the day before october

the best month of the year

jarnsaxa still looks pretty green, though hints of color dance around the edges. and the air has a bit of a bite now when the wind blows. i so love autumn.

so this weekend marks my first year anniversary in the grotto. i still love it here, though much of what i had envisioned for the house hasn't reached fruition quite yet. simple things like art on the walls, flowers in the front, curtains on the window still wait for me to find the time and funds. but it's certainly home. and i look forward to what comes in this second year of home ownership. here's hoping everything doesn't fall apart now that my home owner's warranty has run out.

the white cat that likes to hang out in my back yard just got into a fight with a random neighborhood cat, chasing him at full speed across my back yard. guess he feels this is his territory. still don't know if he belongs to anyone, but he keeps showing up and as long as he's not using my yard for his own personal litter box, i'm happy to let him stay and chase all the squirrels and strays he wants.

still don't know when i need to be at the auditorium yet. figure i'll call steve if i haven't heard anything by 9:00 - that will give me enough time to get showered up, grab my grading and get up to the school if i have to be there at 10:00. would like to have known earlier, but with jack's mom dying, it's understandable. need to check with allen about arrangements, see if anyone is going to the viewing (or if they're even having one).

i decided to stay after school and finish grading the vocab quizzes so i could focus on other grading today (and i kept dozing off, which is not good) when bea came in and asked if i wanted to go get ice cream. of course, i said. then beth and annie called - they were at the brazenhead, but were leaving to hit tgifridays and told us to meet them there. so we did. had a great conversation about our roles as christian teachers in the school - how much are we allowed to say, how much should we say, should we be afraid of the consequences if we step over the line, etc. one of the teachers at the school got into a bit of hot water because a student accused him of proselytizing in class. the teacher's crime? they invited the student to a church activity. not forced them to, not go or you'll lose your grade. just a simple invitation. when did that become proselytizing? you can throw all the "he's an authority figure" nonsense at me, i don't care. i can't believe i'm going to say this, since i've mostly heard it from right-wing nutjobs, but we are promised freedom OF religion, not FROM religion. and i refuse to live in fear that if i mention my faith, the powers that be will come and smite me. we also talked a bit about how we, as english teachers, have it a bit easier, since those kind of conversations come up when we're talking about literature. little harder to make connections when you're teaching math, science, history, etc. and not have it seem like you have an agenda. of course, we then discussed that all teachers have an agenda of some sort. unfortunately, we had to cut things short, but definitely a great time hanging out and talking about stuff. should do that more often.

ok, time to go call steve, see what's happening. hopefully he knows. otherwise i'll probably just end up showing up at 10:00 just in case and if they're not there, i'll just use the time to grade. or go to half price books and lunch - depends on how i feel.
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Tunes: gary hoey - linus and lucy