I had this English teacher in high school, AP English, 12th grade, and he basically treated the class like we were taking freshman level Rhetoric at university. It was kind of fantastic. One of the things I remember most, though, is that every once in a while, he would come in to class with notes prepared, sit down, and strike up a conversation with a couple of students. On those days, a few more students would join in, and then a few more, until everyone in the class was involved in the conversation. Then our teacher would look around, toss his papers on the floor, and say, "We're blowing off today. I don't feel like doing this stuff."

Today, that was me. I slept later than usual, so we were going to do school in the afternoon. Then I got distracted by a few other things, and time just started slipping away from me. By the time lunch time rolled around, I knew it was going to be that kind of day. So we blew it off. This means working on Saturday, which will be tricky, because I already had a few schooly things planned for the weekend. And while the break was kind of nice, I'm feeling a little guilty, because it's awfully early in the year to start skipping school. I just couldn't bring myself to check in mentally today.

Tomorrow will be better.

Evil Genius has been continuing his Local Geography block with a couple of famous historical figures from the area. We started with the obvious: Henry Hudson. There was a really nice segue there to Washington Irving. We read Rip Van Winkle yesterday, and tomorrow we'll talk for a while about the life of the man who wrote it. It would be nice to figure out a way to take a field trip to Sunnyside. We're going to be reading Sleepy Hollow together over the next few days, too. A nice tie in that's also seasonally appropriate.

Hufflepuff is still working on her first research paper. She's doing well with Latin, especially since most of her work thus far has been nothing but note taking. I know she's dying to really get into it.

HRH's story tomorrow is going to be St George and the Dragon, so we'll all sit in on that one. The plan is to create a dragon mask and have a bit of a Michaelmas play. We'll see how well that pans out.