Nora's School

I hear that this is everyone's favorite thing to read about. Probably not coincidentally, it's one of my favorite things to gripe about. Particularly today.

Gripe Number One:
I am FAR from being a Type A, plan ahead, everything neatly scheduled months in advance on iCal individual, but get me going on the lack of calendars provided by the school, and I certainly start to sound like one.

Next week is Easter--a religious holiday that was never fully given vacation holiday status at the University of Texas. Generally we had to wait until the day of Good Friday for the governor to decide. University employees would sit staring at their email inboxes, awaiting the news. The email would arrive and deliver the announcement: the University is officially closed after 12:00 today. And the offices would cheer and the students would throw their dirty laundry into the car and head for home. I remember some of the out-of-state students complaining that they couldn't make travel arrangements and what a pain it was. Ever the self-centered teenager, I didn't give the governor's midday decree two thoughts. I wasn't flying anywhere; I wouldn't start driving before noon anyway; what did I care?

My point? I am slightly familiar with the holidays being announced at the very last minute, and it didn't bother me. Then. Now, on the other hand, it seems utterly ridiculous that we have to wait until the week before Easter to read a handwritten (by Nora) note in her diario that school will be closed from Wednesday of next week to the following Wednesday. A whole week off for Easter! A whole week of vacation with no mention? I was fine with the one-hour notice of five hours of vacation, but this is different! Right? There is a distinction to be made here, isn't there?

Gripe Number Two:
Along with the handwritten note was a tiny slip of paper announcing that, once again, the teachers would be on strike. And this strike "may or may not affect the school schedule TOMORROW." So in case you found no problem at all with the ambiguity of schedules in Gripe Number One, I challenge you to find a defensible position for Gripe Number Two.

Gripe Number Three:
For the third time this year I received a phone call from Nora's school. As I am the Foreign Mother that does not communicate well in Italian, they simply give the phone to Nora and let her explain. Today's conversation started with "My tummy hurts, and my throat is clogged up." Your throat is clogged up? She must have consulted MadLibs for that one and inserted [body part] before [common complaint]. And apparently that works here in Italy as probable cause for being sent home. No accompanying fever--in fact no temperature taken at all. Just a seven-year-old's complaint of a clogged up throat.

That's all I have to say about Nora's school today.