thoughts

R. is my oldest student. 17, Taiwanese, and autistic, he is actually a joy to have in class. He is obsessive about a few things: the scary Saw movies, his friend Ginny in Taiwan, and making sure everyone follows all the rules all the time. He thinks in formulas, and prefers to write sentences like "R. + Ginny = best friends." He wants to be a novel writer when he grows up, and every day for inspiration he checks two sources: the weather forecast and the real estate listings. Pretty creative.

This week we are doing a unit on high school sports in America. In Asia, highschool sports are uncommon. They might have PE class, but as one Chinese housemate told me last night, "Sports were not allowed because we had to study, study, study all day." The amount of time and money we spend on highschool sports is a little bit incomprehensible to them.

Yesterday in class we watched the movie "Gracie," about a girl who tries out for the boys' soccer team in New Jersey in the 1970s. Did you know that girls who play soccer in highschool are the cutest girls in the world? They are. They just are.