It's moments like these that make me love my job.

My freshman art class has been working on a project for the last week and a half. They're doing scratch art, which is a meticulous, painstaking thing. In the class is a girl who struggles with school, having petit mal seizures and learning disabilities. She had taken her work home on Friday, to finish over the weekend, and forgot to bring it in on Monday. I told her to be sure to remember to bring it today, as it's one of the best ones and would be up in the display case.

You should have seen her face. 'Really?' I can't describe her look, but it gave me one of the best moments I've ever had teaching.

Finally figured out the title problem.

I haven't had a place to enter titles for my posts, so far. It wasn't really difficult to add, so I'm glad I didn't wait a year to try.

Speaking of trying, I've begun the Pimsleur Eastern Arabic program. Tonight, I went through the first lesson twice. My throat is dry, but after having only done the first lesson, I'm thinking this Pimsleur knew what he was doing.

Why Arabic? Well, this world is full of languages, and I plan to have a visible slice of that pie chart available to me. Is that written confusingly enough? (You can see, perhaps, why I'm anxious to branch out.) Truly, I hope to learn enough of them to be able to speak well enough to not starve, should I be dropped in any of many countries. A few days ago I received an offer of free Arabic lessons from an Egyptian woman I know. For free. (I plan to bake for her.) I hope that this can begin in the next week or so, but to get me on the fast(er) track, my honey loaned me his set of Arabic tapes to practice.

You think I'll never be dropped in a foreign country, needing to know any of an assortment of languages? I never thought I'd be cooking northern Indian in eastern Wyoming, conversing about archeology, meditations and visions and camping, and flying Arabic tapes back to Illinois. The world is full of surprises.

Overall, I really like that. I'm glad it wasn't up to me to plan my life.