Friday, January 23, 2009

Sorry, Jeeves

Rural Setting, forest and rocks, Jeeves and Wooster walking with Young Poet:

POET (explaining why he doesn't want to accept a stipend from a relative on condition that he go to New York and live the city life):

"I like to stay in my pajamas until 5 o'clock; then usually I just throw a sweater over them."

WOOSTER:

"Don't listen, Jeeves!"

JEEVES:

"uhhh .... (sinks down on rock and drops head in hands)..... I shall be better directly, sir."

A roundabout way of saying it's 10:30 and I haven't taken my bath yet. In fact, I haven't really gotten off the computer. I've been updating my Facebook and Twitter subscription, looking out at the rain, answering emails, updating blog structure and various other peaceful, rural things of the sort that don't involve getting out of my chair by the window.

Off to get the day started!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

*LOL!* Throwing a sweater over one's pajamas in the evening sounds like a good plan to me.

By the way, I noticed you were blogging about Dorothy Canfield Fisher below. (I haven't read that post yet.) I'm mentioning her in an as-yet-unfinished blog post on dynamic thinking/autism remediation. *LOL*

I read Understood Betsy as a kid, then again as an adult and she had a LOT to say about in that novel about education and how children learn. I was fascinated to see that she wrote Montessori books. So many interconnections!

Laura A said...

Umm, if I understand this correctly, I've seen plenty of people in New York City who certainly *look* like they throw a sweater over their pajamas before going out the door, so that needn't be an impediment to living here.

That's mere opinion, and may be based on a misconception about what Wodehouse meant, but it's an objective *fact* that one can spend too much time on the computer just as easy in city as in country ;-). I'm living proof.

lissla lissar said...

I read about a very pleasant concept yesterday. Every few months, schedule a do-nothing day. Do all the chores ahead of time, by chips and ice cream, rent movies, and spend the whole day, en famille, in pajamas. Sounds good. One day we'll do it on purpose, instead of by accident.

Totally off-topic- what do any of you think about Calvert School? I was talking to a woman a few days ago who was singing its praises. It didn't sound like something I'd be interested in (canned curriculum, lots of textbooks etc.), but I'd like to know more before I write it off.

Willa said...

Yes, Laura, this young poet in the Jeeves and Wooster movie actually LOOKED like a lot of college guys : ).

Miranda (Mama Monkey) I should read Understood Betsy. I thought it was really interesting that she wrote a Montessori book, too.

I'll raise the question about Calvert, Lissla. I think it sounds all right if you're a Highly Structured Sort or have other reasons for wanting something laid out for you.

I've heard it called the Cadillac of Correspondence Schools; it was used way before homeschooling, for kids who had to travel with their parents or had chronic illness or were movie stars or basically had reasons for not being able to attend a regular school. I think they even provide pencils. So it has a respectable history and there is no doubt it is a well designed model. The price tag matches the Cadillac label, as I understand. That's all I know.

lissla lissar said...

Thanks. The reasons she was recommending it made me feel that if I ordered it, I would soon be making a tidy fire of the workbooks in our parking lot. My instinctive, sometimes very unproductive dislike of heavy structure would probably make me rebel against it almost immediately.

Willa said...

LOL, Lissla. Tidy fires sound nice to me right now, it's 22 degrees outside. But you can probably do them for cheaper than that....

I think some people LIKE that outside structure and others go through times of craving it because it represents order to them, and their homeschools "feel" chaotic in some seasons. I usually try to simplify when I feel the need for order -- and go back to the basic 3Rs plus Good Books that really cover an awful lot of learning.

I shall try to post about it sometime, still. There's an interesting discussion that seems a bit related over at Real Learning right now.

The classic times to crave a structured curriculum are probably September, January and maybe April when everyone's talking about all the new resources out there?