Watching: Law and Order. I got hooked on the late night A&E reruns of this show back when I was up all night nursing the twins, and I've remained a fan ever since.

Weather: The first rainy day we've had in a while.

I probably shouldn't have watched Joan of Arc before going to bed last night. Early this morning I was dreaming that I had been arrested as a witch. The setting of this dream was Puritan Massachusetts, not medieval France, however. In my dream I was about to be tortured, but I escaped and I was running away from my pursuers when I woke up.

Catholic School Daze

Yesterday morning I stopped by the rectory at St. Ann's church to pick up parish membership forms. I'm Episcopalian and our boys were baptized in my church, but Tab is Catholic and currently a member of St. Hedwig's, the local Polish church. Since Daniel will be starting first grade this fall and since we haven't been able to move out of the city as we had hoped, we have a decision to make: keep Daniel at the school he's presently attending or switch him to St. Ann's, a Catholic school, for a year. The city public schools are abominable and are not an alternative.

Daniel's school only goes up to first grade. If I knew that someone other than Dawn would be teaching first grade, I would consider letting him stay there, but I'm not very happy with her classroom management. Also, it concerns me that the first graders would be taught in the same room as the kindergarteners; I worry that they would not get the attention they need.

I have a few wretched memories of Catholic school, which I attended from kindergarten through third grade. My first grade nun was Sister Marie Ange, an angel both in fact as well as in name. She loved children and was beloved by them. Her gentle style of teaching left me completely unprepared for my second grade nun, a withered crone whose name I have blocked from my memory. She was the quintessential nun who haunts the nightmares of all of us Catholic school survivors. She berated us constantly for what she termed our laziness, stupidity, and evil ways. I remember she used to call me "Sloppy" because of my poor handwriting. As a result, I became pathologically self-conscious about my penmanship for years afterward. To this day, I hate to write anything by hand.

Of course, I realize that Catholic schools have improved and usually no longer employ nuns like my second grade teacher who are so obviously unfit to teach. St. Ann's has a particularly good reputation around here. Even so, I can't help but have mixed feelings about putting my son in Catholic school.

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