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I spent about two hours today trying to remember what gmail account and password I “migrated” this blog to last year. What a mess. And, of course, that is just the time I spent today – leading up to the solution. I’ve spent some little bit of time on it, thinking, planning, and reading help message boards, every day for the last month to break into my own account.

I guess about once a year, I get a real itch to start blogging again, and I either set up a new blog or have to recover what sort of a person I was a year ago to guess what email and password I might have used to update this one.

I felt so relieved when I got here, that I actually shouted for joy. But now I’m too tired to write.

Maybe next year…

Ok. So William and I got into Breal Loaf and now we are frantically trying to figure out how to pay for it.

Tuition – 3870 less 1330 in grants for each of us. 2540 x 2 = $5080

Housing – After two weeks of calling places the day after they were rented, we finally found a house with utilities included for $2300 with a $500 deposit

Daycare – provided on campus, uncertain of cost.

Boarding the dog – approximately $700

Food – ???

So about $8500 plus food and childcare. Terrifying, yet typical. Hilarious, actually, when you consider that we are trying to get to the end of February on $7.03.

Today we swam at Murchison Neighborhood pool, off of Far West (on the north side). Nothing special about this pool. It was smallish with a deep section jutting out to the side that once held a diving board. No shade over the water, but a couple of benches in shady spots and a pergola that looked nice for a picnic or something (though we had already eaten.) Nice to be in the water, but not a favorite.

We stayed overnight and went to visit Will’s dad in the hospital today. He apparently has a hole in his colon, and they are siphoning out all the junk it is dumping into his body through a tube that goes from his reopened surgical wound to a machine that collects it. It’s pretty gross. They are hoping his colon will heal itself, but at some point they will decide to remove it if it doesn’t heal on its own. We had to wear gowns and gloves to go into the room, and it is really all pretty alarming. We stayed for 30 minutes or so, but then he seemed tired, so we took the kids back to Sea World to swim before I had to be back for a meeting with my principal (more about that tomorrow – Mahala is sitting at my shoulder asking me worriedly about whether the Sandman is going to come.)

I have decided that I prefer the afternoon shift at Sea World to the morning one. This may change as the weather gets progressively hotter, but for now, I would rather go at about 4 pm than at 10 am. I went ahead and bought Mahala a season pass (it was only $5 more) in case we go back this week before she returns with the grandparents.

So. We got back from Vernon last night, and we brought my little neice, Mahala, with us. She is four. She loves Merlin. She wants to do everything that Merlin does. It is quite comical. Today we went to San Antonio to see William’s father, who is back in the hospital, but we got such a late start that we ended up not going to the hospital. We got to Sea World at about 6:45, went to Lost Lagoon to swim and then caught the “Summer Nights” Shamu show – which was marginally better than the “Believe” show if you completely disregard the sappy, overdone salute to “our heroes” in Iraq (which is in both shows, but seemed somehow stronger in the evening show.)

I don’t know.

I have family in the military. They took the job because it was attractive to them. I hope the people who are serving now took the job because it seemed likely to benefit them, and not out of some patriotic notion of defending me. I work in an industry that is prone to characterizing its employees as martyrs (that would be teaching), and I don’t think the image benefits teachers. It encourages people to think that what we do should be provided practically free of charge without complaint or consideration for the cost of living. It encourages new people entering the field that they need to sacrifice their personal time and money to make things work for their constituents – and that tends to burn people out quickly and cause high turnover, which, in the long run, is detrimental to the institution.

So, if you are serving in the military, I hope you are doing it because it will pay for your college, or you wanted to travel, or you wanted to learn to fly a jet, or some reason like that. Because the idealistic reasons that people give for being in the military alarm me – just a bit. I am glad that there are people who are willing to take the risks associated with defending our country (even if I am uncertain that our president has led them to the best course of action), but I hope that they are doing it for their own reasons (just as I am teaching children for my own reasons) and not with some sense that they are owed more than the pay and respect that should be accorded to anyone who does their job gladly, out of a sense that it is the right action to take both for themselves and for society.

The kids swam today for about 2 hours in the backyard pool while I only got in a couple of times to gather things up before the trip home. Swim toys always seem like such a good idea until you have to hunt them down. I will say, though, that both kids seem to be doing a lot more underwater swimming – probably a consequence of their getting older and back into the swing of being in the water every day, but I like to think the dive toys are providing some incentive.

I would never have my own pool – not living in Austin where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a nice, inexpensive or free, publicly maintained and lifeguarded pool. But I love the little above ground pool in my mom’s back yard. The kids are all tall enough to stand with their heads above water now, which is nice, and it offers one of the features that I like best about a private pool – night swimming. Though I haven’t taken advantage of it much this trip (I crashed last night at about 7 o’clock, I think.), there is something especially fun about sliding into the water at night, seeing the moon reflected in the water, the water holding you up while the dark sky and stars cover you. Maybe next time.

Today we swam at Barton Springs Pool – the swimmin’ hole that Austin is famous for. It is a constant temperature year-round (a brisk 68 degrees)because it is spring fed from the Edwards aquifer. I took a group of 12 ESL students to swim after their Spanish clep test, and Gavin and William met us there. It was a beautiful day in the high nineties, and the water felt divine. All-in-all, an excellent idea on my part. There is an admission charge ($1 children, $2 teen, and $3 adult), and it really is incredibly cold, so we wouldn’t go there every day, but it is – pretty much without fail – a good time. After I returned the students to school, we went over to Adam & Melissa’s to cook out on the grill. A very good day, indeed.

I took a break from the water today, owing to my six and a half hour drive to Vernon to pick up Merlin, but both kids swam in the above ground pool in my parents’ back yard. I’m sure to be getting in myself tomorrow.