phew.

What a week.  On Tuesday morning, after a Monday off of school due to snow, little Thomas Wesley decided that he'd poke a hole in his swimming pool . . . and thus, we found ourselves at the maternity ward at 3:30.  The boy was delivered by 6:00 that morning.  Everyone's now home; mom is recovering from surgery, resting and moving slowly, TWH is napping on the floor as we speak, being watched over by Simon, and the other two boys are fast asleep.  All the grandparents are pitching in.

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Meanwhile, life goes on, right?  Students at school have their own set of immediate concerns.  Several have told me about their concerns about graduate school.  It's just brutal; I feel their pain.  Another concern:  how do we figure out how to manage when we're missing one out of every four days of class?  The snow is fun, but it's been a challenge figuring out how to make it all fit together. 

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Today I participated in interviews for the honors program at my institution.  What follows is a set of observations that I jotted down as we were having our conversations:

1. Holding our institution's feet to the fire on graduation rates is a fine policy idea at the first glance, and I do recognize that accountability is crucial, but it puts us in a bind:  do we sacrifice rigor for rates?  Anyone who says that it's a false dichotomy is either disingenuous or a fool.
2. The lottery system, while certainly a positive idea from the "access" standpoint--i.e., providing "access" to college for many (or most) of HS graduates--is a crock.  Higher "access" doesn't lead to better education.  
3. Some students referred to "types of intelligences" during the conversation today.  I had to bite my lip to keep from blurting out that recent research shows that intelligence is intelligence, and generally proves to be pretty broad-spectrum--i.e., a smart person is more likely to be better at picking up just about anything, savants and prodigies excepted.
4. Reminded of just how apt a young person is to express him- or herself in cliches and catchphrases.
5. Whenever discussions of censorship come up, I want to blurt out something about Milton's Areopagitica.  I generally don't, so as not to come across like a blustering asshole.
6. It is fun, at least in the abstract, to watch my colleagues from various departments and see how they think, express themselves . . . and how they justify their political and intellectual biases.
7. You want to watch a young person get tied in knots?  Ask about evolution & creationism.
8. It irritates me when people use "strive" as a noun, i.e., "the strive for perfection."  *grinds teeth*  "strive" is a verb.  Strife, struggle, agon, battle: these are perfectly serviceable nouns.
9. One thing we can always count on:  the young women will mostly look very put together; the young men will almost all look pitiful.  I know I did at that age;  it's amazing that any boy between the ages of 14 and 25 ever gets a second look from a member of the opposite sex, to say nothing of a date.

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Little Red is so very sweet when it comes to his "beebee."  He wants to hold him & kiss him . . . we have to remind him to be gentle.