Maturita Pictures

Here's Joel and I getting ready to have dinner with our colleagues
at a post-Maturita celebration.

This is what a classroom looks like when it's set up for Maturita exams. Each class gets their own room where all the exams will take place. The student on the left is using his 15 minutes to prepare to speak about his topic for English.

Here's Joel (right) and our colleague, Ales (left) examining Jake for Maturita.

final exams

We have reached what I think is safely called the middle of the end: maturitas are upon us.

Rather, I should say that maturitas---graduation exams---are upon our students, as we have the somewhat cushy-by-comparison job of listening and asking questions and writing down notes and assessments as such while our boys and girls have the weight of four-plus years of ever-building expectations squeeze every last ounce of sweat out of them and into their smart black suits and dresses.

If anything, for as bad as it sounds like they smell, they actualy look great. And, hopefully, will sound great, too.

For a synopsis of what a maturita day looks like, follow this link to my explanation from last year. Arabská's got a slightly different version of this, but from what I've seen it's basically the same. So remember our panic-stricken students this week when you're talking with Jesus. They need all the help they can get.

a short rant of the ungrateful

I already don't know anybody's phone numbers since I started storing them in a cell phone. I don't ever look for anything myself anymore because my wife knows where everything is. And now Blogger says that it saves my posts auotmatically as I'm typing them up, presumably so I don't have to remember to push the button myself.

In the spirit of this "ungrateful" mini-rant, this is what they call "learned helplessness." Sign me up.

rites of passage

I checked another box this week on my roster of "The Complete High School Teacher Experience" by reading Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go! to my graduating seniors. Even though there were a few wisecracks (Pavlo brought special attention to the bright, almost psychadelic colors, for one), for the most part they listened reverently, as I did back when Mr. Bobo read it in our last Civics class lo, these many years ago.

It was also fun to teach Seussisms. Although I don't know when's the next time Lucka will meet a howling Hakken-Krak or when Martin will play his tartinkas.

Tomorrow is the last bell for another year of graduates. More on this to come. Stay tuned.