at long last

it's Friday, the first one of my favorite month, and I've missed you all immensely. No month was busier than Jon's July, so I won't recount all that was a very good September here. All three kids went off to scouts for a two-and-a-half day event, so the house is rather quiet. Lots of student work remains for me to grade, which is what I long for--not the grading but the good work that they've honestly done. I'm taking on 120% for the third year in my seventeen at ISP, partly because I've handed off (happily) department chair and partly because I was aware that the preps were rather in my favor already, and the kids have been genuinely great. Some of their work can be seen here. In one class we're studying The Tempest, in another Hamlet, in another poetry, in another the great 2005 film Water, by Deepa Mehta. I have been static in my top three films of all time, placing Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors first, following that with Norman Jewison's Fiddler on the Roof, following that with Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing; part of me wants to time-capsule that ranking order for prosperity. But Kenneth Branaugh's Hamlet is the film I most look forward to as a teacher--kids see it for the first time, I for the fortieth, and I can barely discern who is taken by this version more deeply. Water, which I'm using for only the second time, might be in that ballpark, too.

Katerina has transitioned from pre-K teaching to Grade 3, coincidental to Emma's advancement there (with another teacher, a nice Estonian man named Mr Jannus). The boys continue to do well at Cerveny Vrch preparatory school for Czech gymnasium--this will be Joe's last year there, so we'll factor whether he'll go on to one of the gymnasia or come back to ISP. We of course don't want Ben to feel isolated next year, but he rather likes where he's at, and he connects things so nicely. A Japanese caligrapher, for instance, came to Roztoky's art club and worked with students, Ben being quite central in the mix. His front tooth, by the way, is fantastically repaired--all thanks to your prayers and Uncle Josh's effect. I know I was a wreck that day, but among all blessings, Ben's chipping a tooth was and is God's grace extended. Our God is an awesome God.

Many other things to report--Em is starting piano in earnest and excited to do so (thanks Leah and Grandma!), cross-country enjoyed a good Dept Of Defense invitational to Vilsek, Germany and is gearing up for our final tournament in Kiev. I've been accepted to an IT conference in Bombay this February, a welcome deviation from the excessive IB workshops I've been doing year after year. I won't integrate that venture into Stara Evropa stories, which remains my hope to finish by this year's end anyway, but I'm happy to have a new spot on the globe to 'know'. Our Week Without Walls trip to Istanbul was very gratifying as I felt I knew that city already but was pleasantly surprised by what I hadn't before experienced. I wish it had won the 2020 Olympics for all the world to see...

My colleague's mother died two days ago--please pray for the family of Dianne Caskie. Perhaps she was on my mind most when I penned the following, posted (as per Jon's wise advise to post in two places) on Lost Menagerie. Incidentally, I wasn't trying to force an animal into this poem--the "swan song" at the end was, I think, rather unconscious. Funny how that works...

A forty-seventh frost adheres upon the

windshield, faithfully—cold cloying dew.

This season, ‘bezmolvno, beznadezhno’,

glows like any will-o’-the-wisp anew,

lighting pathways of the living and dead.

  Still taking in the harvest of last year,

  when Lyuba ran headlong to heaven

  and became belief: she showed it here

  completely—and now she is complete.

    Then Bronko’s birth, a happy chance

    to measure how good souls criss-cross,

    their transept plied in happenstance.

      Indian Summer’s back to temper frost’s

      effect and tell us nature has no violence.

        We’ll wile the days away in swan song.

          The rest, we know, is…