So...summer came and went a lot faster than I anticipated. It was very...busy, and full. There was a lot of work--a LOT of work, a whole. lot.-- and a few injuries, but there were many good things. Things like this:
-Our third wedding anniversary! With waffles!
-Family camping trip to Calaveras Big Trees. Hello, giant sequoias!
-The Alamo! Davy Crockett!
-The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace--Nixon Now!
-Family weekend in Solvang: weather that required a heavy sweatshirt at night and hot chocolate and heavy blankets to sleep under, more pastries than anyone could ever eat, and one of the best dinners I've eaten in a long, long time (from the Succulent Cafe: tender molasses braised short ribs with cinnamon apple chutney and green beans, served over creamy parmesan grits; lavender crème brûlée for dessert)
-Ostrich Land on the way back from Solvang. We fed ostriches and emus, and I brought home an ostrich egg.
-My first ever sailing trip. We sailed a large keelboat, I helped raise the mainsail, and we zipped in and out of the tall ships out on the water for the Tall Ship Festival at Dana Point at sunset.
And now it's back to school! I'm teaching one new class this year (Plato) for a small group of extremely dedicated and wonderful students (they made Plato Play-dough and cookies for the first class), so I'm doing a lot of reading in preparation for that. Lots of stuff I haven't read before (Alcibiades, Ion, Laws, Theaetetus, Euthyphro, Apology, Sophist, Statesman...all leading up to an extended study of Republic), but it's really good. And eleventh graders are totally capable of reading and understanding this stuff! They can see what Plato's doing, and can even appreciate the humorous and ironic parts! It's so good.
One of my ninth grade Logic students excitedly told the class last week that the chapter we discussed "opened a whole new window into theology" for her, specifically the part where the text discusses the significance of Jesus being the incarnate Word of God, and why it is so important to us as Christians that Reason Himself came down and was enfleshed.
My seniors (third-years) are hard at work already, asking excellent questions and working earnestly to better understand their faith, and my tenth graders (first-years) are beginning to allow their minds to be [painfully, slowly] stretched. Pray for them. I think it's going to be a good year, but I think it will be especially difficult for some of them. They don't like not having answers.
Here's to another year!
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