First Day of School

For the last few weeks we've been "prepping" for this school year. That is, I've been planning classes and lessons, and trying to help Katie get ready for this year's Latin (new teacher, new program), and the kids have been industriously goofing off. Travis goofs off (meaning "creates digital music and art") with such intensity that it sure looks like work, but it's what he loves. Katie goofs off in a more casual way, and her transition back to school lessons is less wrenching. But, anyway...

My planning. As you can see, Emma's contribution is to keep me from getting too comfortable. Even after several hours of planning and typing in lesson plans for the year, I'm on the edge of my seat. 

(But she knows that at some point in the day I will want to Leave the House, so she also spends time strategically lying on my shoes.)

And sometimes I imagine that I am going to read. Maybe, to estimate how long someone would need to read a chapter of his science book. Fortunately, my calculations now take into account how long it takes to read a chapter while peering around a big fat cat head! Since this will probably also be my student's situation, it actually is good to know.

And sometimes she just lies on top of the books and notebooks. Because she doesn't want me to strain my eyes.

Anyway, about today.
We are doing a "slow" start. Meaning, just a couple things. Travis is taking a class in Digital Media Technology at the community college this semester, and classes started today. We also started history, composition, and literature. Latin starts next week. And we'll start math the first of September. So, somewhere in there we'll start All the Stuff.

This morning we started with a nice history video. And tasty breakfasts. That was good. And then "orientation," in which I went over the beautiful schedules, mapping out when each class & reading period will be during the week, which I created with much effort. I had one who was willing to oooh and aaaah, and one who felt that this was a tremendous waste of his time. We also discussed the first writing assignments, which were similarly received. Thus the morning.

At 1:30 Ed dropped Travis off at the community college (and arranged for us to be allowed to park on campus -- he's such a good fellow!). At 3:20, as indicated on the schedule, I picked him up. He was not cheerful. The professor had gone over the syllabus. Nothing else. And she let them out early, instead of giving the mid-class break indicated on the schedule. And Travis sat down to wait for me on a bench. And got a massive splinter in his thigh.

We were zooming off to piano class, but I stopped at the house and tried to dig out the splinter. No luck. And I could see it was big. And deep. So after piano we went to the walk-in clinic. Katie and I waited long enough that we began to suspect an amputation had been necessary (we got there a few minutes after 5, and place closes at 6, but they stayed a good half hour late for us, which I thought was awfully decent of them). When the doctor finally brought Travis out, she explained that she had had to do a "dissection," because the splinter was really quite a few really Big splinters, along with some small splinters, and they'd been really deep. She said there was no way I could have gotten them, and that she'd nearly sent him over to the emergency room, but that she was confident she'd gotten it all. And that we'd need to come back next week to have the stitches removed. Aack! My poor boy.

So, that was our first day of school this year. I think we've left ourselves with a fair lot of room for things to improve!