**Orion*

I looked to the sky from my front yard this evening and saw the constellation, Orion. I remember looking to the star-filled sky on the way back to our hut in the jungle village, Salazar Aitaca, and seeing Orion. I imagine, maybe tonight, my daughter is looking at the night sky from the Galapagos and seeing Orion.

It is not such a big world, really.

**First Day of Class**

Thankfully over. But it is always fun to watch the expression on the kiddies faces as I talk about the courses... and the requirements....

Today in my law class, I talked about precedent and how a court can get around precedent by distinquishing facts, modifying precedent or outright overruling precedent. That led to an interesting discussion of the new SCOTUS and the dynamic in place with J.'s Roberts and Alito. I mentioned that rather than overrule Roe v. Wade, the conventional wisdom seems to suggest it will be "modified" over time. We liberal types prefer the word "chipping away" at the precedent, but since that phrase was not a choice in the legal vocabulary list I distributed today students will make do with "modify."

I sent them off to do a quick questionnaire to determine with which justice their views most closely align. Unfortunately, O'Connor and Rehnquist have not been remove and substituted with Roberts and Alito, but it will be interesting to see. My experience is that students are growing more and more conservative.

Be afraid.

**Filing down memory lane**

My daughter has left this morning for two weeks in the Galapagos. She was only in Quito for a week after 21 days in the eastern jungles of Ecuador. I noticed she hasn't updated her blog, but I am sure it will be worth waiting for.

Because she is gone, I am going to prepare a draft of her taxes for her. I put off taxes as long as I could, and have to do them to prepare the financial aid materials for my son. But in order to do them, I had to organize my files. Don't underestimate the time it took to clear the piles of paper off my desk. I spent the better part of two days as it inevitably leads to clearing out stuff already filed. I ended up with four grocery bags of shredded paper when all was through.

But (and this is the point of this entry), one of the joys of going through the files are the memories they trigger. Once such memory came from my daughter's old school materials. So I am posting the contents of a "letter of recommendation" her Colorado 5th grade teacher wrote for my daughter's application to an advanced academic program once we moved to Michigan.

Those of you who know her will appreciate this. By the way, this was and still is "E's" all time favorite teacher.

It was dated April 1, 1996:

Dear lady,

You will have "E" next year. Good luck!

She will never amount to anything unless you can find a way to control her. In her 2 years here I have very few positive things to say. She refuses to participate in class and is always distracted.

If this was the worst of I could say, I'd be happy, but she has several annoying habits that affect the entire classroom. She has a collection of animals that are constantly in the way. She demonstrates no interest in academic work and negatively influences those around her.

She does not form positive relationsips with adults or children. Her best friends are the chairs in the room who she talks to for hours. When she does interact with others, there is a strong likelihood of bloodshed.

On a positive note, "E" is often absent.

I hope all goes well. Please don't send her back.

**As vacation fades away**

I begin my last weekend before classes begin. I tried to get to the mountains this week but the weather has not cooperated. Too much snow coming down in the Cascades, so the roads have been a problem. So I went horsebackriding Wednesday instead of snowshoeing. Today, instead of snowboarding, I drove to the coast and walked the beach for hours. It rained on and off, all preview to a major storm making landfall late tonight in the Pacific Northwest. Gusts to 90 mph. It will hit my abode after midnight. Rattling windows will keep me awake again, I imagine.

**Flashback**

I woke up yesterday morning to a voice from the past: an old boyfriend from my grad school days at Syracuse in the early 1980s. Turns out he was doing a feature for NPR. I have to tell you it was very strange to hear him talking about Bosnian refugees in Utica, NY as I am gaining consciousness.

He spent many years working for NBC and apparently "retired" to a life of teaching college, in his hometown of Utica.

Somehow college teaching doesn't feel like retiring to me.