the sky is falling! the sky is falling!

Well, now. Ahem. I wonder how many ceiling tiles will have fallen by Monday if the rain continues...

Today's word, courtesy once again of the discussion in the E2H class, is anomaly, which means:

1. a deviation from the common rule, type, arrangement, or form.
2. someone or something anomalous: With his quiet nature, he was an anomaly in his exuberant family.
3. an odd, peculiar, or strange condition, situation, quality, etc.
4. an incongruity or inconsistency.

Look at the Vocab List for the full collection of Words of the Day, as well as the dictionary.com WOD, which today is galumph.

First Quarter is now over!

For this weekend:

CW should work on revision of pieces from first quarter. You are now about eight weeks away from your portfolio due date. Time to hunker down. We have a few more genre studies to do, but if you don't have at least a few possibilities by now you may have a problem...

Also, don't forget that this is the last opportunity you have to write a creative letter explaining why I should focus on the good instead of the ill when I grade you at the quarter (assuming there is ill to focus on). ;-)

E3H will be writing on the boards this weekend, and the topics will be the issues that we began tackling last night and again in class today:

• Responsibility: to family, self, "gift"
• Religion and Art: mutually exclusive or intricately intertwined
• Relation to parents’ world
  -->loneliness w/dad
  -->mother’s influence
  -->Parent/child relationship

If you venture into the boards, discuss these and or other topics on the "Asher Lev Discussions" board this weekend. The alternative assignment will be to take a look at some of the artists or art works that Asher Lev cites as influential. (See list below.) Select several and, in a brief essay or several short disconnected paragraphs, discuss reasons that Potok might have had for choosing them.

• Artists referenced by Asher Lev: Chagall, Picasso, Robert Henri, Poussin, Modigliani, Soutine, Pascin, Michaelangelo, Rubens, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Mondrian, Renoir, Kandinsky, Rembrandt, Monet, Gaughin, Matisse
• Works referenced: “Guernica,” “Massacre of the Innocents,” “The David,” “The Pieta”

E2H will be taking to the boards to discuss last night's topics:

• the importance of Simon Stimson
• George and Emily's "important talk"
• "people were meant to live two by two"
• The stage manager's philosophy about death and eternity (87-88)
• "Live people don't understand, do they?"
• The stage manager's final speech

Today's videos are brought to you by the letter H. First, a Hasidic rapper/reggae singer:

And then, a silly product parody:

J: collapse Music: Falling Slowly (from "Once") Silly 70's: The Streak--Ray Stevens

Today's Missed Conferences:Emma N

Tomorrow's Conferences:Kristie, Molly, Megan, Julia, Emma S, Alex M, Max, Johnny, Reanna, Cole