Today, Valentines

I describe a feeling, then tell you more about K. (my prodigy...progeny...protege? w.e.), then leave off with two quotes:

1) To strain your senses and awareness to fully grasp a thing, then realize a)no-one else is trying so hard, b) there's heartily less to see in it than you'd expected. For example, applying the same amount of mental energy to Francine Rivers that you would to War and Peace.

This is similar to tipping the cup to your mouth anticipating a sip of milk, and getting a sip of water.

Once harnessed, that is, if you learn what is the proper amount of concentration to apply, much mental and thus over-all energy will be saved, where you earlier put undue effort in.

Which nasty behaviors to remind them to stop, and which to let slip? Which battles will win the war.

2) Kourtlin continues:
We had another exciting naked episode. Moral of the story: for amusement, try trusting him. We were in the classroom listening to the teacher read the book; she's quite good at it, and the book interesting, as fourth grade level books go. So I when he makes the sign-language sign for bathroom, and orders me fiercely back to my seat, I comply. ... a few minutes later he's running around the hall with nothing but underwear. This was amusing, but doesn't beat the time he tapped L. on the shoulder and she turned around to see him wearing less.

I like being conned; if it's someone stupid, I see right through it. Much better is someone ingenious, to whom I can say touche, and almost thank them.

The class had a spelling test today. We were playing SPARKLE, which I remember well... my there-ness had lapsed when I was brought back into the zone at Mrs. H's comment that she'd "never had a class laugh at that word" - duty. I suppose it sounds like doodoo? I reacted kind of like the time Benji and I learned the German word for puppet, Puppe, pronounced poop-eh: consciously too mature to smile.

This smug, natural ability to feel above it all (though I've proven myself otherwise, with a marshmallow "got milk?" mustache, and my inevitable respond to a child escaping out the door "and don't come back"). The teachers and aids continually look over students' heads and sympathize, especially with me. "He must be a handful." - "I don't know how anyone could have enough energy to keep up with him all day." - "Aren't you exhausted by the end of every day?" And I nod in humilitous pride. That teacherly expression is part of what keeps me going every day.

But the most affective memory was the last, walking out the door as I offered my homemade cupcakes to a few adults in the doorway. Upon seeing they were homemade, the overstuffed teachers took one each after all. I gently encouraged the grandfatherly man in grey hair waiting inside the door. "You sure you don't want one?" Timidly he reached in. "I haven't had one of these in years," he said. I felt like he was an angel, or could at least be a friend, in another world.

3) The Germans know reality. a) an "old proverb," b) Nietzsche (out of the introduction to Walter Kauffman's translation of Faust):

"To understand and be understood makes our happiness on earth." (Translation: Verstehen und verstanden sein macht das Glücklichkeit auf Erden. Close?)

"Nur wer sich wandelt, bleibt mit mir verwandt - only those who continue to change remain my kin."