Sunday, April 07, 2013

Bits and Pieces of Our Days (Or, There's a Guillotine On My Dining Room Table)

* Okay, not a real guillotine. It's a vivid black-and-white image, appropriately captioned, "Madame Guillotine."  Betsy's using it in her research project, which is coming together nicely, for her French class. This class at the community college has been the perfect introduction for Betsy (a high school junior) into classroom dynamics and workloads. I couldn't be happier with her schoolwork, or with her terrific teacher.

* Speaking of horrifying things (guillotines, that is, not college classes), Betsy and Anne-with-an-e went to see Jurassic Park in 3D yesterday.

Possibly one of my favorite movie lines ever: "Yeah, but, John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists."

* We had a wonderful Octave of Easter, tinged with just a bit of data worry. What's data worry, you ask? It's the anxiety that looms over us as we live in the age of, "But my whole life is on that laptop!"

My laptop is dying. I spent a good chunk of my week backing things up.

* Writing Group. It's been fun and gratifying, over this school year, to see our new Writing Group come together. We've moved from an all-girl dynamic to two teen girls and two boys, and it's working out beautifully. And it still never ceases to amaze me that all kinds of kids become better writers simply by writing. Every day, every week. Write, and your writing will improve.

* Books read lately, some of which most definitely deserve their own blog post:

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card (a reread, but I think it's been almost 20 years)
Half-Magic, Edward Eager (magical)
My Sisters the Saints, Colleen Carroll Campbell (review here)
The Way We Fall, Megan Crewe (at the request of Anne)
Meet Marie-Grace and Meet Cecile (American Girl series -- at the request of Ramona) 
The Fault in Our Stars, John Green (for which I fell hard)

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