Back to school

The peeps headed back to school yesterday.  Everyone said they had a good day; it was good to see their friends. And this morning they had a hard time getting out of bed.  There you go, one day of school excitement and getting out of bed easily.

Here, in high school, the students take four classes a semester. Each class is 1.5 hours long. Do bureaucrats really wonder why drop-out rates are so high?  Even if you like a class and have an interesting teacher it's going to be difficult to stay focused for that amount of time. That seems like asking for trouble to me.  I'm sure doodling (and pocket texting) is rampant. Boys need to move a lot, I can imagine the leg wiggling, fidgeting, sighing, and sleeping that happens by the afternoon.

Erin is enjoying seventh grade, so far.  Today they had a Team Building day where they named their team, came up with a chant, and they need a motto.  This is the kind of thing I'm also very glad they didn't do when I was in school because any group game activities bummed me out.  I don't care for games - I appreciate that other people do (rock on, other people) but just allow me to watch quietly from the sidelines.  Erin is also trying out for volleyball this year.  Right now she's at the first dance of the year (day two and there's a dance already?).  I think she likes having middle school to herself without the boys there to cramp her style.  Ditto for them in high school, of course.

I just edited this picture today of Erin and her friend Becca on the zip line at Becca's house.  When there's not a drought, it goes over the edge of their pond and ends in a pine straw bale at the other end.  The two of them will do this for stretches of time.  

Irene is headed our way (North Carolina, not us in particular) but many local events have already been cancelled for the weekend.  It seems the Outer Banks are going to get slammed this time.  I was talking to a guy picking up his grand-daughter from school and he said, "I don't know why people live down there - you've got water on both sides of you, of course it's going to do damage!"  We were interrupted but I wanted to ask if he goes to the beach.  He probably does, most of us do.  We wouldn't  go to the beach if there weren't people who lived there, ran restaurants, hotels, fish, etc. so that we could go to the beach and enjoy ourselves occasionally.  I agree that it's a big risk, but it must be worth it or no one would do it, right?

Here's to the people willing to take the risk!