April 28, 2015

I'm paying attention to things.  We had a longer than necessary session to complete the applications for transfers yesterday, and more than ever, it seems difficult when upper-class teachers are examining the new student applications under the assumption that, by the time they get them, the difficultly quirky kids will be nice, interesting and tamed.  I guess this school thrives on a core of quirks, though, and I do appreciate the marginalized kids in a different way than I do the successful, privileged ones.  So it's a delicate balance.  I do think it's a valuable service to the school, though, and will continue to help with the committee whenever it's possible.

Heard a good WWW this morning - the origin of the word "mall" as we use it.  I had figured that it came from the London "Pall Mall", but hadn't realized where that in fact came from.  It was apparently given to a particular alleyway (more treelined than nasty, from the description), that was used to play a particular ball game, and the name came from the Italian (hence the unique pronunciation) pallamaglio, ball and mallet, although there is a suggestion that it came via the French for the same or a similar game, paille-maille, for the straw hoops that one sent the ball through.  And then of course it evolved into the notion of a public promenade, then eventually to the idea of a large public gathering place, so the shopping mall.  Good background.  I should go back to smoking them, just so I can casually drop that information whenever there's a lull in the conversation.

Just learned the ways to change the layout, font, background etc. of this blog.  Seems like there is a great deal more possible variety than when I first tried it, years ago now.  Don't know if I'll keep it this way (the font looks a bit like my favorite of the fonts I drew with the font paint application, which is both good and bad), but we'll try it for a while.  It looks different, anyway.

And, note to self: when I noticed the comprehensive test available for French 2 the other day, I didn't check whether there was something similar for French 1.  There is, but it's in the assessment material for Unit 6 - don't forget this one - it's pretty good for a final.

Thanks, as usual, Alex Tarr - he posted something from today's Writer's Almanac, which prompted me to look for it on FB - it's there, so now I will never miss another one.  Good little thing, in its way.   http://writersalmanac.org/ 

Small thing, but the roasted broccoli dish from SK today went very well with the risotto from Aldi.  Plan to do each again, hoping that Aldi still carries the risotto, and that it wasn't just seasonal.