Here are the scary, scary remarks President Obama gave this morning. Quake in fear at teh Indoctrination!!!11!!!

How shameful. That schools would be afraid of showing this to children. I’m guessing/hoping that the speech will be up on YouTube by tonight, so that the three of us can watch it together. I’d really like School Girl to write about what she thinks of his speech, and how she can apply what he talked about to her own school experience.

Her classroom is closest to the door, almost exactly where her 1st grade class was save for the location of the hallway. Last Wednesday Evil Dad and I walked School Girl over, along with 2 bags filled with school supplies. This year, parents were allowed to go in and help carry the bags-o-stuff into their classroom. Last year, we had assessments/form completion time for the first two days of school, so parents were expected to go in and helped set up all the supply stations.

I also got to briefly meet the teacher. She’s an older, much more experienced teacher, with an East Coast attitude. I like her already, and I think School Girl likes her too. They’ve been busy this past week setting up the classroom, doing “getting to know you” activities, and generally doing what they can without actually breaking the kids into ability groups right away.

School Girl has loved, and really needed, getting back to her routine of school-reading-evening stuff. Without getting too involved, it’s been an upside-down sort of summer here; so a return to some sort of normal is very welcome indeed.

We talked about her reading level last night. Apparently it’s even higher than it was last spring, which opens up the possibility of letting her read some of my favorite SF books from when I was a kid. I think we might give this one a try, primarily to try to counteract some of the things she’s been watching on TV/at the movies this summer. It’s nice, and rare, to see an intelligent girl as the hero in any sort of story; and frankly, the plot of this one is pretty damn cool. I haven’t decided whether I’ll be reading it to her or letting her give it a shot on her own.

Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode
People are People – Depeche Mode
Hoppipolla – Sigur Ros
Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone – The Dempseys
Mr. Pitiful – Otis Redding
Lost (intro) – Sepultura
Super Taranta! – Gogol Bordello
Never Let Me Down Again – Depeche Mode
Oscar Wilde – Company of Thieves
Immigrant Punk – Gogol Bordello
Bonus: Vampire – Black Uhuru

“The substitute told us that we could choose (which one would get the letter, Frog or Toad), but then she said I had to choose Toad.” Did she explain why? “No. It’s not fair; (Lil’ a) got to write about Frog, but I didn’t.” Maybe she just wanted equal numbers of letters to Frog and Toad. “Everybody else got to choose.” (ORLY? I recall going down that dead end a couple of weeks ago – no need to bring that up now.)

So we talked about the fact that sometimes things don’t seem fair, whether they are or not. Even if they really aren’t fair, you need to do what your teacher asks, make the best of it (which honestly, she did – the letter was really pretty good, even if written under protest), and do what you actually wanted when you get home. She’ll be writing a letter to Frog, her favorite, after school today.

Yesterday, I called C and made arrangements for School Girl’s birthday visit on Saturday. We’re going out to School Girl’s favorite breakfast place and decide what else we’re doing from there. Evil Dad wanted to go to the art museum, but we’ll see.

Sometimes things aren’t related here, but sometimes they are.

So far, Fred has played Wii Bowling, Wii Tennis, Wii Golf, has raced cars around the living room with School Girl and one of her buddies, and has unsuccessfully attempted to eat cereal 4 times. That was on Friday…

Fred’s been a nice enough guest; he’s polite, incredibly quiet, and hasn’t woken us up at 6AM this past weekend. He even cheerfully went along to the fabric store yesterday. We’re just running out of things to do with him. I’m trying to decide if he would like to come along on a bike ride after school tomorrow, when the weather’s supposed to be a bit warmer again.