Still More Bookses!

Four new ebooks will debut at Book View Café this month.  Two are backlist fiction (GALVESTON by P.G. Nagle and HIDDEN FIRES by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel), one is original fiction (THE HANDS OF GOD by Gerald M. Weinberg), and one is original non-fiction (the long-awaited WRITING HORSES by Judith Tarr).  The books range in price from $2.99 to $4.99 for DRM-free ebooks.  Full details at http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/News/BVC-New-eBooks-November-2010

Mackie's IEP

Yesterday the school held Mackie's IEP.

It was predictably difficult.  While I'm very glad the school assembled a team of seven people to figure out how best to teach Maksim, it's still 90 minutes of hearing how low your kid's IQ is, how poor his reading scores are, how odd his behavior is, and that he probably suffers from depression.  I left the session feeling black and blue.  You'd think I'd be used to this by now; I've been attending Aran's IEP sessions for seven years.  But I don't think you ever get used to it.

So we worked out what strategies Mackie needs at school: resource room time to help him with his reading, extra help on tests, social worker intervention to learn more social skills.

Most parents' files on their kids are filled with report cards and fingerpaintings and book reports with stickers on them.  My files are filled with psychological reports, Wechsler scores, and intervention strategies.

And last month Mackie set his bed on fire again.  I don't know what to do about this.  Find him a therapist, I suppose.  The last one didn't seem to do much--he never spoke to Mackie for more than ten or fifteen minutes per session, and he never seemed to attempt any reparative therapy that I saw.  I don't know where to begin looking up here in Wherever.  Mackie doesn't even have a pediatrician yet.

Hell, I didn't mean for this to turn maudlin.  Mackie got an IEP, and that's a good thing.  For the rest of his school career, he'll have whatever support he needs.

Oops

I made my lesson plans for next week, completely forgetting that I'm slated to chaperone Nameless's German exchange students on their trip to Chicago.  We leave Sunday morning and return Tuesday evening, meaning I'll be out for two days of school.

The difficult part is that the marking period just ended and my English 12 class is supposed to start the new unit on Greek theater, which makes it difficult to create sub plans.  Media literacy is in the same boat.  Oi!

Fortunately, a bit of flipping through the English 12 curriculum turned up a short story they're supposed to do.  I assigned that and some follow-up activities.  For media literacy, I conjured up a brand new in-class project about advertising.  The students will create a bad ad and a good ad (according to the principles we've studied in class) for the same produce and will present them when I get back.  The sub can oversee it easily enough, though now that I've put it all together, I want to see it in action.  The mark of a true teacher, I guess.

I'm going to miss MAUS.  That was the most interesting and challenging piece of literature I've taught in years and years, and the class responded really well to it.  I doubt they'll love OEDIPUS REX quite as much, but I'll try to show them the interesting bits. 

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST comes up after that, and I've never read it, let alone taught it, so I'm reading madly right now.  Some of the themes and symbols are obvious--order vs. chaos, angels vs. demos, the dichotomies of artificial social constructs--but a few others elude me on first reading (something's going on with Chief's flashbacks to his past, but I'm not twigging to them yet), so I'll probably have to cheat a little and look a few things up.

Friday Night Family Soiree

So yesterday after Mackie's IEP I managed to finish the first draft of THE DOOMSDAY VAULT.  (Actually I'm rather further along than that--the first half of the book has been rewritten and is editor-ready, for example, and a good chunk of the last part has been rewritten at least once.)  And this meant I could take a few days off to let it sit.

The evening started in the kitchen.  I like to cook, actually, and I actually unwind at the stove and sink.  Even the cleaning up is a de-stresser.  Going out to eat tends to stress me because I'm always thinking of the cost, the lack of nutrition in most restaurant food, and trying to manage the behavior of three kids, and I'd rather stay home and cook an elaborate meal than go out.

I made a beef roast with potatoes and carrots in the pressure cooker.  (One of these days I have to try making boeuf bourguignon.)  I whipped the potatoes and made gravy from the meat drippings.  So delicious on a cold autumn evening!

Afterward, the boys and I headed out to see MEGAMIND with Sasha at the helm.  It was his first time driving with the entire family in the van, and he acquitted himself well.

MEGAMIND was a fun film.  Glad I didn't do the 3D version--it does quite well without.  The boys enjoyed it quite a lot, too. And Metroman with a beard totally looks like presterjon 

Tomorrow: laundry and cookies!

And packing for Chicago.