Senior Recital

One of my former students invited me to her senior piano recital. I first met her when she was in second grade and had just come to our school from China. She didn't know any English. A few years later she told me about her first impression of me. She thought I lived at the school because my classroom had sofas and a rocking chair. She came to see me last week at school. I had a newspaper photo of her on my door. She is one of the top five students in her senior class at a large high school. Heading for Duke University in the fall.
This is what I love about teaching. I really like getting to work with students for several years. I see them grow and make progress. It makes up for lots of things like paperwork and stupid tests and idiots on power trips.

Too much to do

WARNING Don't read this. I just had to get this out of my head. Should have written it in my journal but here it is.
I don't feel like doing anything and yet I have too much to do. I want to just sit outside and read in the shade or go to the pool and swim all by myself. But this afternoon I ran here and there getting signatures on forms for summer school field trips. I found out we don't have enough money to pay the admission fees for the field trips and don't really have enough money for the buses either. The whole idea is to get the kids to places they don't usually go. There isn't money to buy the new summer reading books either, so I may end up buying them myself.
After getting the paperwork to the final office, I went to see my dad. He goes over the same concerns almost every time I visit. He doesn't like it there and wants to go home. There isn't any way he can go home because there is no one to care for him. Mom is not well enough and everyone else is working. I feel really guilty when I read about other families who take their elders into their homes. This stresses me but I don't think I could take the stress of the alternative any better. I don't like this 'season' of my life.

Quilting again

Started the new quilt. Everything is cut out except for one block. Tomorrow I hope to start putting the blocks together. There will be 20 diamonds each made from 4 blocks.
Looking for the final Percy Jackson book. One of my choir kids said she had it and would lend it to me. Didn't realize the same author wrote the 39 clues series. Showed my third graders the six books I have read in the last two weeks and they were amazed that anyone could read that much. I've got a long way to go with that group.
There is so much to do to get ready for summer school and not much time to get it all done. I've got to make a list and get going.