Ooooh, today is the day I get my stitches out of my thumb! I have to go after work, of course, but it’s still something to look forward to!
Yesterday I went to the dentist to get a crown. I forget what that’s like. It’s not fun, of course. So when they put the nasty-tasting goop in my mouth I try not to choke while it’s hardening, and I’m drooling like Pavlov’s dog because I can’t close my mouth and swallowing is such a bad idea. Then they pull out the goop — and another crown with it! Wasn’t that just special? The plus side of going to the dentist, though, was that I was never convinced that the infection was all gone from my last abcessed tooth. They’d done the root canal, but sometimes I could feel the tooth swell inside the crown and the mouth on that side was tender. They did an xray and sure enough, there was still infection. So I’m back on antibiotics.
My class has been writing letters. Our writing standards for the past few weeks was about writing a persuasive essay and then writing a persuasive letter. The letter-writing standard was in there. Another standard thrown in was addressing an envelope. Then one of the staff came around and wanted us to write letters to service personnel for Veteran’s Day (the only activity done in the school aside from getting the day off). So first we wrote letters to Veterans, which was slow going. (They’d already written persuasive letters to me.) Then we wrote letters to Connor. http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/connorbourke NOTE TO SUE: SOMEONE SHOULD ACTUALLY READ THOSE LETTERS before they give them to Connor. I’m guessing the envelope will arrive at the school on Monday. Mom should read the letters first to decide how appropriate they are. Now of course we brainstormed things to talk about, and I talked about Connor having a younger brother and older sister, and that Katelynn had been my student — and one student wrote “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” They even saw the pictures on the web site, for Pete’s sake!
We still had to address envelopes, though, so yesterday we wrote letters to Malia Obama. She’s their age, and I found an address for one of President-Elect Obama’s Chicago senatorial offices. I figured that’s the closest I’m going to get to an address before January 20th. So the kids wrote letters to Malia and addressed their own envelopes. And to be honest, only one kid had a hard time addressing the envelope. Here’s the thing: Copy it EXACTLY the way I wrote it. It took her four times. Did I put that next to that? No, I started a new line. And she ERASED the WHOLE THING each time! She couldn’t get that you just erase what’s wrong and keep what’s right!
