in preparation

Miriam Toewes has written another book:  All My Puny Sorrows.  I keep a list of books I want to read in the "notes" section of my phone, and sometimes I take photographs of book covers when I am at the bookstore, and store them.  I like this method of keeping track.  I used to write myself scraps of paper and then lose them, or store notes in my brain where they were even more likely to get lost.  Miriam Toewes is a very interesting modern Canadian writer.  I like her enormous East of Winter Prairies wheat fields, and her great big skies; they remind me of mine.


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Shawn and I had a final discussion with the Island Opportunity folk this morning at 7am, which is too early to be discussing finances, honestly, but it was necessary.  We have decided not to move to the Island now, now that things have worked out for me at the school, and while J is in transition between high school and post-secondary.  Maybe the Island is a better place to vacation than to work.  We are going next weekend to look at it again, with other ideas in mind.  Summer cabin?  We said goodbye to our Island connection (for now), which was sort of difficult, but we left a stopper in the door so it wouldn't slam shut completely.


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A former colleague contacted me asking for help.  Help was to come in the form of a letter attesting to an incident I witnessed last year, an incident for which she has been suspended from work.  I thought about all those people who promised to help me out with my problem at work, and then chickened out. And then I wrote the letter.  I am not going to be one of those people who is afraid to speak out for what is right, even when it puts me on the wrong side of the administration.


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The play wrapped up on Thursday night and the kids were great this time, cured of last semester's case of diva-ism by my temper tantrum, perhaps?  Or maybe they've just grown up a bit since then.  They gave me an engraved picture frame containing a photo of all of them, which was a brilliant gift, the lead actor and actress gave a short speech about their appreciation of the Drama program, and they all choreographed and performed a hilarious dance for me at the end of the show to "I Had The Time of My Life".  A much better note on which to end.  I experienced a restoration of faith in the goodness of teenagers.


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