matching tracksuits

L has been dancing whenever she hears music from the time she could stand. At first, it was only rhythmic bouncing with her knees and upper body. As her motor control improved, so did her moves.

So great is her love of motion that she’ll gladly sit and watch others dance. One of her favorite videos to watch is a clip about one young English lady’s ballet instruction, and from the first time she watched, she declared, “I’m a ballerina!”

Now, at close to four years old, she’s finally of the age that we can actually begin to make that reality.

A quick trip to the ballet supply store, a few phone calls, and we have a reluctant ballerina.

L is a cautious girl: she doesn’t just dive into this or that without concern. She is, in short, a worrier. And so on the first day of ballet, though she had been talking about it all week, she fretted that she might not like it after all.

Fear set in, and before long, she was declaring, “I don’t want to go.” No amount of cajoling could convince her.

The Opportunities-We-Never-Had dilemma set in: we never want to force her to participate in anything creative — where’s the joy in that? Yet we knew that if we could just get her there, just let her see the other girls dancing, that all would be well.

Finally, K simply declared that in order to cancel the lessons, L herself had to go with Mama to  cancel the lessons.

She ended up staying.

Saturday morning, before her second lesson, L was all smiles.

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Image via Wikipedia

A student in class today asked why we capitalize the first person singular subjective-case personal pronoun, I, but none of the other personal pronouns. “Why don’t we capitalize ‘he’ or ‘she’?” the curious young lady asked.

Indeed.

“I’ll look into that,” I replied, scribbling in my little notebook.

The New York Times offers an answer:

England is where the capital “I” first reared its dotless head. In Old and Middle English, when “I” was still “ic,” “ich” or some variation thereof — before phonetic changes in the spoken language led to a stripped-down written form — the first-person pronoun was not majuscule in most cases. The generally accepted linguistic explanation for the capital “I” is that it could not stand alone, uncapitalized, as a single letter, which allows for the possibility that early manuscripts and typography played a major role in shaping the national character of English-speaking countries. (New York Times)

The whole article is quite interesting.

The summer’s end nears. Morning temperatures are back in the lower seventies, and return to eating breakfast on the deck occasionally. Bagels for us all, but the Girl prefers to dip hers in maple syrup. In a sense, it’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

Here in the south, the end of summer is about the only time we can go outside and play comfortably. In July, it’s still 90 degrees as the sun sets. We try to head out sometimes for a little outdoor time, but no one wants to melt.

Still, there are options. And does it ever bring back memories: a few minutes of running through misted water on a hot summer afternoon was my idea of paradise when I was a kid. A few overlapping garbage bags fastened to the ground with whatever one could find would sometimes serve as a slide, though never for too long. Since we don’t have a sprinkler (they’ve all broken), L has somewhat limited options. It’s more fun for me, though.

The last of the crape myrtle blossoms begin falling.

And in this end is my beginning: a new school year both sparkles and looms.

Facebook is truly becoming ubiquitous, to the point that it can be used in Polish religious advertising.

Below was a poster at the entrance to one of the many churches in Krakow.

“Bóg” (“God”)  is pronounced much like the English “book,” but with an obvious “g” instead of “k.”

“Dodaj boga do twoich znajomych” literally means “Add God to your acquaintances,” but a more Fackbook-eque translation would obviously be, “Add as friend.”

K grew up so close to Slovakia that it’s fairly easy to pick up Slovakian programming from her folks’ home. Indeed, that part of Poland used to be Slovakia: there’s still a weekly Mass said in Slovakian,  and K’s father’s high school exit exam was in Slovakian.

The program itself has hints of the old communist form.