This and That

For everyone else, the first week of school is short. For me this year, it is especially short. I am going to a wedding in Seattle, as the daughter of a family friend (one of my wife's best friends in high school) gets married in a park near Seattle. School began Wednesday. Missing the first Friday and the first Monday are painful, but the job doesn't always come first. The young woman in question has been a guest in our home and a presence in our lives, and we are pleased and honored to witness this important step in her life.

Besides, it gives me an extra couple of days  to savor that all-too-brief period at the start of  the school year, during which the students are so cowed, wowed and confused that they are quiet and compliant. Soon enough begins the daily struggled for control of the classroom between me and a handful of miscreants. Some years, the moment of peace is gone by next Monday. That's as may be, but my sub will have to deal with it.

Anyway, that's why I'm filing early this week.