If life gives you lemons, buy stock in Minute Maid.

It's been an interesting fortnight. Rough waters. Master McNeil told me to expect 'gut checks' and wow was he right. But we keep on keeping on.

For example.

I caught the plague that's been going around up here. Nasty little two week bug that includes (among other symptoms) a vicious frog in the throat and lost voice.

Perfect time to do my mute day, to the vast entertainment of most of my students. In truth, it was pretty fun. My child students got a big kick out of classes taught entirely through gesture and example. My friends got a laugh out of my killing two birds with one stone. My adult students learned to listen with their eyes on bodies.

I had to cheat twice. I got a phone call that might have been an emergency while nobody else was around to answer. Also, one of my students got very discouraged and I couldn't think of a way to fix him without a brief, kind sentence. Still, I call it a success...those small failures just point out how difficult it must be to truly lack speech. The point was to build empathy, walk a mile in another's moccasins, after all.

As for the rest of it...today, the sun is shining. I'm looking forward to a couple of good weeks.

Thanks for listening.