Life cycles

[liv]

Today was the bar mitzvah of the first of this year's crop of pupils. I found myself nearly as nervous as I was at my own bat mitzvah, but in fact everything went perfectly. The star of the occasion did very well and more importantly enjoyed himself; this is a guy who at the beginning of the course had no Hebrew and was unsure he could cope with standing up in front of everybody without falling apart due to stage fright. So I'm particularly proud of him; he's worked very hard, and compensated for some SEN issues, and you can just see him fighting with grim determination against the biological forces that want to turn a 13-year-old boy into a monster.

I gave a sermon on the concept of holiness and how that relates to this week's Torah portion; it was a little bit stream of consciousness, but seemed to go down well. Thanks to hatam_soferet and Screwy for providing input when I was working out what to say.

Doing that kind of thing uses up my entire day's quotient of energy; I came home to collapse for a couple of hours before going out again, and made myself a desperately needed pot of tea, and promptly put it down with its centre of gravity over the edge of the table. So I smashed my good teapot, and made a mess and didn't even get to drink the tea. (Fortunately I didn't spill much of the hot tea on myself, though scalded toes are a bit annoying.)

Then I had to go to the memorial event for my neighbour Alice. The idea was to have the kind of teaparty that Alice would have loved, gathering a bunch of her friends and neighbours (she made a point of getting to know every household in her street) to eat lots of cake and sing songs and make merry together. This we did, and it was a beautiful way to remember her life. But I didn't get home until quite late, and the clocks are going forward tonight, stealing an hour that I really need for preparing the lecture for Tuesday. So, sleep for me fairly soon.

Comments

[ravingglory.livejournal.com]

I'm glad your student did well, and sorry to hear about the teapot and Alice.

[liv]

Thanks! It's a bit odd to put the broken teapot and the death of a friend in the same sentence, except, well, I have already done the being upset about Alice thing, and having a memorial gathering for her didn't make me any sadder about that. But it's always nice to get this kind of comment.

[dr-jen.livejournal.com]

Congratulations (if appropriate) on your student's bar mitzvah, hope that you're feeling less frayed soon.

[liv]

Thank you! I think congratulations on my pupil's achievement are very much appropriate. It goes without saying that he gets the credit, but none of it would have happened if I hadn't taught him. And I think it's ok to be proud of one's pupils.

[blue-mai.livejournal.com]

you are a good teacher. and Alice's memorial sounds good too. hope you get some rest and recharge. (not much to comment, just making pleased-for-you noises)