So I said to myself, Mabel I says,

Beware.
Just realizing that when I decided to take the plunge and start up a blog, I thought- what do I have to write about?
And about the same time, the server at school crashed. Hard.
And all the data is gone. Years of work. Student work. Disappeared.

The district explained that we don't back up the data. Ever. Other data, but not teacher or student or site data. Ok.

As a person who is somewhat technical (more in the past, less these days, soon a luddite with a kerosene lamp and a butter churn, but that's in the future), people have come to me and asked about the technical problems. In the middle of class, break, lunch, afterschool, texting me, etc. And for each, I get to explain, in comforting yet horrifying words, yes- all your data from the last five years is gone. And when the district personnel TOLD you it was BEING BACKED UP, and IT WAS SAFE, they were saying- well.

So I said to myself, Mabel I says, this is bad. Bad for teachers, students, admin, assistants. Awful.

But also this week my sister is off to Africa- UGANDA, to work with orphans and try to make the world a great place. She's like that, my sister. And I didn't tell her, but I am TERRIFIED for her. I looked up Uganda to get a read on the current situation, etc. and became a little short of breath.

This week, and next, I'm just humming a happy tune and trusting she'll be OK. She's in a more dire place than I am.

Also, a teacher on a listserve wrote to share about the death of a former student; gone at 23 from cancer. They're in a more dire place than I am.

Soldiering on- not my best skill, but one I'm going to try for the rest of this week (one day, OK...).

I do wonder- if I hadn't wondered what to write about, would I have so much to write about? I am living in interesting times...

Good news? Loving GoogleDocs for the Journo workload. THAT's cool. Wrote a page to upload the digital photography images, so the students can upload their photos from home. THAT's cool, too.

Ruthless Enthusiasm. Worth it.