Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

Non-periodic table

Monday, Mar. 13, 2006
6:15 p.m.
Patsy was back at school today. She was laid low right at the outset of March break (which started in February) with an attack of shingles. The left side of her body is afflicted and, while she has resumed her teaching duties, she is fatigued and in pain. Nevertheless, she bravely taught us the use of the subjunctive in conditional sentences in Latin, and corrected our faulty translations of it into English (which is what we spent an hour discussing last Wednesday in class in her absence), and assigned us a rather generous amount of homework translating English conditional sentences into Latin.

Last night�s clarinet recital was quite good. My student (this is the annoying one, remember) has rather strange stage deportment. Usually one�s teacher coaches the student ahead of time, how to acknowledge applause, how to present one�s accompanist, walking on and off, bowing. These are the things seasoned performers take for granted. A student presenting her very first recital, unless she is astute at observation and remembers what she sees professionals do, is going to need a little reminding. I did some of that in one of our recent lessons, and I think her clarinet teacher went over it too, but she needs to practise more. Her parents were there, two very �normal� people, and we all wondered how they ended up with a child as socially misfit as my student. Well, there are things only hinted at, such as the fact that they are not a �touchy-feely� family, that both parents are lawyers, that the mother smiles too much and too tightly.

I decided to forego belly dancing tonight. I�ll attribute it to �women�s problems�. Since my periods are becoming non-periodic, as in irregular, I�m never quite certain when the next one will strike. This one arrived just under eight weeks after the previous flow and brought with it the usual cramping. In fact, it made its appearance when I went to the washroom after having my lunch at school, which prompted me to drive home for the proper sanitary accoutrements, not having any in my knapsack. I tell you, menopause cannot come soon enough.

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