Paid off our VISA account. It's now at a zero balance.
On track with HELOC payoff and savings, three weeks ahead with precious metals.
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I am happy for my son this school year: he has an excellent teacher, he shares a class with his best friend. During the acquainting/orientation week, my son has had interesting assignments:
1. bring a bag of four things that have special meaning for you, that help define who you are. One item was my country's flag, the desecration of which he told the class would lead to "the Deputy of England's order of beheading."* Another item shared with the class is The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey, an illustrated little alphabet poem about 26 children who die in horrific, vulgar and painful ways. The boy memorized the book when he was three and would recite it for our Goth friends.
* It is not the flag of England. The teacher is from England.
2. decorate your composition book with pictures and photographs. We had too much fun with this and nearly turned it into "Their Satanic Majesties Request," "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," or "We're Only In It For The Money," crammed with people. My treasured moment was when we affixed Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) next to a text strip of "Don't Mention The", and then Evelyn Waugh.
Waiting for that parent-teacher conference call...
I am determined to become the parent who supervises her child's homework and makes sure it is done well, and unlike last school year my child WILL exceed standards on the Measurement of Student Progress Tests. Not one of seventeen boys in his grade at his school exceeded standards, despite six of those boys taking accelerated math, and despite my child's competency in reading ranking close to two grades higher. It makes me wonder if "Glee", "High School Musical" and Justin Bieber monopolized the content components of the tests.
Otherwise we have no excuse to play in the fields of the staff's minds...
September 9th, 2011 at 03:32 pm 1315582375
September 9th, 2011 at 03:49 pm 1315583363
Greatest.book.ever.written: Brideshead Revisited.
I love Evelyn Waugh, too.
September 9th, 2011 at 08:36 pm 1315600591
Jerry
September 9th, 2011 at 09:23 pm 1315603404
I showed him Dennis Lee, Jack Prelutsky, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Shel Silverstein poetry books in his first grade year to help him find a poem that excited him. Then I showed him "Frustration" as a poem I liked, and the spark of poetry appreciation ignited into an inferno in my dear little aesthete.
September 12th, 2011 at 02:25 am 1315794317