What a week

We got to watch Laila for a few hours on Saturday afternoon, while Jasper did a couple of massages in Aurora. She learned to paint with watercolors, under Papa's eye. She mostly preferred the dark paint and going in circles with the brush! great job!

Laila at the door

no, mommy can't go

 Noriko, a teacher from Japan, is visiting our school with her students. She presented a power point to my third period class about the earthquake and tsunami last March. You could hear a pin drop in the room as everyone paid close attention to her words. The thing I remember her saying, that was surprising to me, was how this natural disaster brought the Japanese people into a more humble perspective. The realization that they could not control everything was brought home, even the practices for tsunami failed because people were taught that going to the third floor would be safe. It was not. She thanked the countries for their support, and had a page that said to Pray for Japan. She said the emotional support shown by letters, posters and phone calls meant very much to the Japanese people. She also noted that the world news coverage of Japanese people standing patiently in lines, and the fact that NO looting happened impressed the Japanese people. They were grateful for the acknowledgement and recognition of the appropriate behavior.

me with Noriko, and the latest pottery design

We had more snow this week! We woke to snow falling on Wednesday morning, but it was not sticking.
More snow started to fall at 5pm and continued until midnight. Around 9pm it started to stick. David had a final from 6:30-9:30pm at the community college in Oregon City, which is a higher elevation than at home. At 11pm he wasn't home. The snow was about 1-2" thick in our yard, and making the streets white. He wasn't responding to our texts or phone calls. We were getting concerned that he'd driven off the road and was unconscious. Kenzie decided to take my van and try to get up to the college. She got down 99e to South End road, and up the tight, steep curves without a problem. It was further up the road that the van skidded a bit, so she turned around to come home. She called me and I stayed on the phone with her until she felt the road was underneath the tires again. She said she had to drive in the tire tracks of the last driver, no matter what lane that was. Still no word from David. Kenzie and Dave took off again, to give it another shot, to make it all the way to the college to determine if David's van was in the parking lot or not. They were gone less than two minutes. David had called them. He'd left his phone in the van, turned off, and for some reason decided to go out to the van at 11:15pm. The final was going quite late, and he still had some things to finish before he could leave. Only problem was, he was now locked out of the building and had to call campus security to let him in. Dave asked him to call when he was leaving and to keep calling every 5-10 minutes. He called at 11:30 to let us know he was leaving school. He didn't call again, but arrived safely home at midnight.

the cat came back

a little more snow than last week

the camellia bush in the back

One more day of school and then spring break! Quite a few students are already starting their vacations and won't be here tomorrow...or weren't here today, or yesterday, or even Monday, for that matter. Makes teaching frustrating. Especially when a student wants me to somehow create a magic fix for them. One kid was absent yesterday, came in today and argued with me about the project, then refused to do it, even when I pointed out the necessity of doing a particular bit today, so tomorrow he could finish it up. He came in with the attitude that it wasn't worth his time to start the project because he missed yesterday (he was 'tired' and went home) and thought he could talk his way out of doing the work today, and thus skip doing it tomorrow as well. Sorry to say the exchange brought out the worst in me.