February 26th

Jen may be right,

I have been doing some thinking about what has happened at the start of the month actually at that school board meeting with 'that' look.(1st paragraph) ‘That’ look which I thought shunned me for loving books and indoctrinating my children with them.

And here perhaps I need say the kind of thinking that happened to me; Jen put me right and told me I was probably wrong.

This whole issue came about and became particularly articulated in our home on Friday morning after I came home from dropping of Liliom at school. It has been snowing the night before and neither the janitor nor the other person trusted with shovelling snow off the paths could make it to school. They both live some 10 or 15 kms from the school and snow, especially quite some snow just makes it impossible to travel distance. The school bus for instance was more than an hour late.

Anyways, I grabbed a snowploughingshovel, whatever they might be called, probably shovel and started clearing off the stairs and front of the school. I remained alone in my work although some other parents stood around smoking cigarettes on the street corner (they couldn’t even have the excuse of having to rush off to work).

So Jen’s theory is that the look I was given on that school board meeting was a ‘you know what I’m talking about, you’re with me’ look. The exact opposite of what I have been theorising earlier.

Grabbing something to do in and around the school when it is there to do is very much in line with the Steiner philosophy and I have been trying to take an active part in the life of the school. Let’s hope that my reading of ‘looks’ is just lousy, and lets hope I am not as paranoid as I think I am (a rather paranoid wish).

A funny addition to the book issue. Yesterday in the Library while Jen was cruising the snowy street of Szeged frantically searching for her passport - which she also moved to the location of the home – with the children I had some pretty ok time at the library. Ernest was fascinated by all the children and their fascination with either the books or him while Lili somehow managed to find the very book her teacher reads stories from. That was a good catch amongst the possible tens of thousands of books just in the children’s library but it was also a welcome revelation realising that although in first grade at the stiener school they may not be too encouraging about books, they don’t burn them.