It's hard to get motivated to do anything these days ...
The weather's slowly getting better.
The students are restlessly staring at the calendar.
I'm tired. Tired of having the same conversation with seniors:
"So, if I come to class every day from now on and do all my work, will I pass?"
"We'll see."
"What if I do all my work? And some extra credit?"
"It's possible you'll pass."
"Possible? I want a guarantee."
"Fine. Let's talk about this tomorrow. In class. OK?"
"OK, I'll be there."
And then the kid is not there the next two days.
Ah, but I guess I'll miss most of it when it's gone. When I'm gone.
Just had an email exchange with the English Department chair at a school I will probably be at next year, and he wrote that one of my responsibilities would be to monitor study hall once a fortnight. The guy is from Ireland or Australia or something. Anyway, my English teacher question of the day is this: Without looking it up, do you know what "fortnight" means?
10 comments:
Yes, but I grew up in London where the word was used much more commonly than here, so I may have an unfair advantage.
I think I first learned it in Peter Rabbit, so ... same thing.
Yes. My mom used to read Regency romances all the time. And since I read everything in the house, I had an odd vocabulary by the time I was 10 or 12.
I semi-second Anonymous. I have no idea where I learned it, but I read everything in sight so I had/have quite the vocabulary.
10 days?
Yes, but only because I finally looked it up a few years ago. I was already in my thirties.
I think it's 14 days...but I could be wrong, there are a lot of cobwebs in the brain these days.
Yes, but only because in seventh grade, part of my liberal arts childhood included, “Fortnight” at Bobby Rivers’ Dance studio. With metal folding chairs lined up on opposite walls under the ballet mirrors, boys seated on one side, girls on the other; we learned to interact with one another. Mr. Rivers, a petite man with a jaunty black tam, would stride through the middle accompanied on either side by two enormous standard poodles and, while pounding his cane on the floor for emphasis, would demand that we stand to either pick a partner or be chosen. Oh, the angst. The best part was afterwards when we could buy a 45 from the top forty list. Fortnight, after all, was supposed to be the hip place to be. Haven’t grown up to be much of a dancer though I am well versed in several different kinds of waltzes.
Of course! Every two weeks. I thought everybody knew...
Yes, I knew what it meant. I am from a former British Colony and this is how we speak.
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