Summer's end

After a summer of indecision, our fall is shaping up. Here’s the final fall out:

We will not be moving next summer. That is the biggest news, and the most disappointing.  Another well qualified officer was chosen for the position my husband had put his name in for.  It would have been a great experience, but now it is clear that we will be staying put for the full three years in Guam. I’d like to say that I am relieved to know something at least, instead of being unsure about the future, but this was not the something I wanted to know!

The next decision: schooling. 

Over time it has become obvious that my youngest son would do better in a more structured environment.  In other words, he just doesn’t listen to me. Everything’s a battle. I don’t want him to think that learning involves warfare with your mother. He did well in school in Mississippi, so I feel good about the decision to send him to the DODEA school, which starts next week.

The 12 year old is also going to school there. He’s a more willing student, so I’m conflicted about sending him, but he is, like his older brother, motivated by competition, and he’s an extrovert.  Ironically, that same older brother, the introvert, thinks the 12 yr old should stay home because he sees that there is much to learn at home. If it weren’t for sports, I think the oldest would happily return to homeschooling for high school. Or rather, internet-schooling.

Meanwhile, the two girls are staying home by desire, which made my choice easier.  The 6 yr old is a Miss Priss and easily swayed by groupthink, so I worry about her going to school.  I know I’m caving to a wish to shelter her, instead of responding to wish to share my love of learning, but I’m hoping she’ll at least learn to like reading by the end of the year, instead of resisting it more.  The 10 year old is less girly-girly, but she also is a follower, and seeks affection and approval. I’d rather she get that from me. The thing I’m going to have to work on is keeping these two interested. I’m going to have to get crafty, I’m afeared.  Or they will defect from me and want to go to school too.

That means I’m going to have to fight the tendency to prefer to work on the classes I am teaching at the community college, which started last week.  I picked up a second class, composition, in addition to the literature class. Since I never took a composition class, teaching it requires extra planning on my part; it’s too late to teach these students to write the way I learned: read and read and read, though we’ll read in class. When I taught Freshman Composition in Mississippi, I was following someone else's syllabus. That plan didn't seem intuitive enough to me, so I'm trying something different.

After teaching two classes so far, I'm convinced my literature class is going to be fun - it's a small group, but interested and inquisitive - while the composition class is going to require some magic tricks.  I think that there might be one student who likes writing, but the rest of them just don't want to be there. Judging by their assessment essays, I'm going to have to review some basic grammar.  

Even though I struggle to come up with a plan for this composition class, I’d rather spend time planning a classroom lecture for college kids than a lapbook or display board for a 5^th and 1^st grader.   I’m hoping they’ll be happy to do a lot of reading outloud together and call it school.

While I hemmed and hawed about the school decision, summer rushed to a close.  The younger kids participated in the Missoula Children's Theater production of "Beauty Lou and the Country Beast," which they loved immensely despite the cheesiness of it.  We watched A LOT of Olympics (about Guam Olympians here).  I was inspired to race an Olympic length triathlon (1.5K swim, 40 K bike, 10 K run) last weekend, and got 2nd out of the women (out of about 5, but the first place girl was at least 10 years younger than me.)  Now walking is painful.

And we've been puppy sitting for a couple weeks for a cute dog. The kids ask for either a dog or a baby regularly. 

Yes those are Bart Simpson comic books. Summer isn't officially over.

Then sports practices began: football for one, cross country for the other and soccer for the final four.  This means I spend a LONG part of my day shuttling kids places. This does not make me happy, other than for the fact that it makes them very happy. Practice is the highlight of their days, rain or shine.

My orchid was working on its third shoot before a recent squall.

Now the broken stems from the garden are on the window sill.

And raining it is has been. Lots of rain. I thought I’d have to push the car to dry land one day, but it floated through a mini-sea on its own.  Monsoon season is here, and a typhoon system has been forming in the Pacific. I’m hoping it doesn’t have power to arrive here. We survived two years in Mississippi without facing a hurricane, and I’d be happy to leave the Pacific without ever having weathered a typhoon.



We did catch a break in the rain to take a last boonie stomp to Priest's Pools and one of the mass graves of Chamorros after they were massacred by the Japanese during WWII.

Outside of the War in the Pacific National Park's visitor center. Great new exhibit there.