Rosy-fingered dawn

Saturday: In Homer's Odyssey, dawn is usually described as "rosy-fingered." Yesterday morning, the sunrise reached across the gray sky just as the Greeks and Latins described it in their epics, beautifully "rosy-fingered." On my way to work, I drive over a river, and yesterday, the epic sunrise looked spectacular over the water. One of the important joys of being an educator is being educated at all times. I haven't read the Odyssey for years, but teaching it has required me to re-read and re-appreciate it, probably more than the students ever will at this stage. I love the epic descriptions of nature. When I was a high school student taking Latin, I was forced to translate the Aeneid from Latin into English, and to this day, I remember the rosy-fingered dawns described by Virgil. Teaching secondary English has forced me to review material, as well as to learn material, that I didn't need to know during college teaching. High school ELA programs are quite thorough in their requirements, from reading lists to literary terms, so I continue to learn or re-learn.

I got nine weeks' grades in last week and started a new nine weeks. As an ending to the Count of Monte Cristo unit, I showed the 2002 film version, very cheesey and romantic, and not at all like the book. Nevertheless, the students enjoyed it (great substitute for reading the book, I'm sure) and it had some good scenes of Chateau D'If and Marseilles. Its theme of revenge could not help but be thrilling, and what student can resist loving a lot of fight scenes? The truth is, though, that Edmond Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo, never physically touched his enemies, and ruined them in far more sophisticated ways, such as hitting them where it really hurt, in the pocketbook.

I ordered the long Gerard Depardieu version of the movie through Netflix and started watching it last night. This version hits the spot! It's in French, but if the translation is accurate, is faithful to the text. I managed to watch four hours of it last night and will finish the next few hours of the movie today.

Liberto arrives home tonight at 10 p.m. I truly hope the plane is on time. I always call the airline hotlines before departing for airports because there's nothing worse than hanging out for wasted hours at an airport, with later arrival times appearing on the screens every 15 minutes. But even if I wait for hotline confirmation that the plane has departed Miami, what if that departure time is pushed up till midnight or later? I am not a Night person. I don't do well after 9 p.m.

It's drizzling today. Every morning now, a few fresh lemons appear on the lawn.
I have three full bowls of fresh lemons in the house. We'll have to start taking them to work, to give away to people. The tree has grown so well that one section has arched right into the fish pond reeds, weighed down by the clusters of growing fruit. I hate that we'll probably have to cut some of those branches before the limbs end up in the pond water.