Friday was not exactly a hectic day, but busy enough and filled with more minor drama than I care to see. What will I do here? Will I spell it out? Beginning with missing mass in the morning - not because I overslept but because I sat down to read a tiny section of Merton's No Man Is An Island (I've been creeping through it) and ended up lost in it - this business about looking for signs of God's will. Merton says, "We must be silent in the presence of signs whose meaning is closed to us." Given that advice, I would do well just to shut up now - since I understand nothing, never have (and few believe me when I say it, but it's absolutely true). At any rate, I missed mass and had to gobble down my cheerios and rush off to homeroom because this was the official registration turn-in day for next year's classes. I had a mountain of paper to collect and alphabetize. We all did, and we all got through it. Then we had classes.

Juniors first:

I decided to approach some poems by William Wordsworth via performance. I could have simply read the poems to the class and asked a few questions and nodded politely and assigned a writing exercise of some kind. But that would bore me almost more than it would bore the class. (Besides, I did all of that yesterday with a ponderous reading of "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey".) We're near the end of February at the crack of the third millenium, you'd think we would be well past boredom by now. We've got all of this electricity zip zapping around our heads - boredom should be vanquished, but it ain't. If anything, it's on the rise, approaching zenith. Everybody is bored. But my first period wasn't - or didn't seem to be. Each group of six had a poem to perform - a little bit of choral reading. They designed it, practiced, and performed well. They received a tiny critique from teacher and class, revised a few things, and performed again (excepting one group who get to do it Monday).

Then my senior APES:

Because it was Friday, these lucky thirteen got to turn in the first draft of their research paper and laze around to chat about their new books. One group has chosen The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy and have blasted into some enigmatic character issues. Another bunch have begun Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and are not so impressed by the slow start. The third group is actually a duet who weren't around when the others chose their books - they've picked some Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Then the sophomores show up:

And turn in their final Spoon River-type poems, which look pretty good. And since we begin Gatsby next Wednesday, we launch a series of short stories touching on issues related to that book. We read Sherwood Anderson's "Sophistication" (issues: growth, dreams, not so mushy boy-girl stuff). Monday we'll look into Hemingway's "In Another Country" (issues: that damn war and disillusionment). So we read Anderson in a roundabout.

Then I had lunch, after which I repeated sophomore and junior classes (with varying results).

Last period I tried to load some yearbook pages for submission ... and was stymied at every turn. Drat.

In other news: I've begun to disentangle myself from the leviathan Yahoo!Geocities. Under Andreux's watchful eye, I'm shifting this site to the more diminutive eterna.net. So far so good. Next week I'll be snatching back my "brtom.org" from Y!G. You can visit the new place (same as the old place) at www.eterna.net/brtom/index.html. However, if you're reading this, you're already here.

(Oh - one thing - at the eterna site, reply forms at the bottom of pages like this one won't be working for awhile ... but will be soon, says My Man Andreux.)