The Ides of August

The Ides of August will see me in a very different position. My wrangling will be completed 8 August and on the following Monday I begin work in the kitchen as Head Ass. of the AM shift, serving food for 30 tables three times a day. It will be a rough fortnight.

It will be strange leaving the barn. It has been my home for the past ninety days and I have enjoyed myself thoroughly. My classes by and large have been excellent, especially this last class of nine Intermediate girls. I cannot begin to say how adorable they were, nor how squirrelly; yet they all paid attention to the material, even as I had expected. Whether it is genetics (which my sister thinks) or it is conditioning (as I think it is), I prefer teaching Basic and Intermediate girls than boys; they listen closer, they work harder, and they have a much stronger drive to become skilled horsemen than their male peers, who seem to me only to want fun, not necessarily improvement.

Just think; this summer, seventy days of teaching, fourteen days of dishes: coming to a close in three weeks. And then...! Annapolis! I can barely contain my excitement whenever I contemplate this fall. I have studied the Greco-Roman world, this semester I study the Judeo-Christian world, and next semester I study the medievals, who united the two in a beautiful synthesis. Thus this sophomore year will be tremendously exciting and challenging, with horribly difficult Greek, dense music theory, wretched geometry and Descartes, and an ever increasing pressure from my enabling essay. I will meet this challenge in the best way I know how: as of right now, before lunch, before I teach with Rebekah at 1430, even at this moment, I will return to my cabin and take a fat nap.

Toodles.