Tonight was the annual parents� back to school night. While it is fun to put names with faces, the awkwardness of the thing is unbelievable. Most of the teachers believe that parental contact is important, their body language says that they really prefer not to meet parents en masse. As for the parents, the old-time ones come but don�t take the whole thing particularly seriously.

The truth is that I met very few teachers I had not encountered before. Day has the same teacher for Law and Government that she had last year for Global History. The acting teacher is the acting teacher and the Latin teacher is the Latin teacher. A few other teachers I met through Kat having them.

I don�t learn much that�s new. I have heard the lecture on the PLAN test and the PSAT before. The gym teacher gave the same talk when Kat had him. Last year I wondered if the Latin teacher is as much of a ditz as she appears and this year I wondered if the Latin teacher is as much of a ditz as she appears. (Day says that she is not and that her problem is that parents make her nervous but then Day also says she is incredibly easy to sidetrack so I�m not sure how to take Day�s answer.) The speech teacher�s body language still doesn�t seem to match what she is saying. It�s like watching a dubbed movie. It�s just a little bit off in ways that you can�t quite figure out completely. Like Day, I watch the acting teacher this year and get the feeling that he is planning for retirement.

It isn�t even as much of a social event as it used to be. Day goes to a union high school and there are several feeder districts. Kat often was in class with several kids from our feeder district so I knew a lot of the parents. I don�t recognize most of the parents of children in Day�s classes at all. I ran into a few I knew, particularly in her Advanced Scene Study class.

Still, I�m not sorry I went. I�ll go again next year. But, in the meantime, I�m glad I don�t have to do it again until next fall. After all those classes, all that walking through the building, and all that repetition, I�m tired.

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