This last week was the second half of J-term, during which Mer had some more free time. She also very much enjoyed her J-term class on Shakespeare, where she taught three plays over the eight days. Her class read Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and Richard III – one each of the typical categories of comedy, tragedy, and history. Mer’s class went very well, and she hopes to be able to teach it again, maybe even next year (with different plays, of course!).

With the extra free time, I was able to have in-week social time with Mer, which is a treat. On Thursday, we played a literature-nerd game, Dark and Stormy. In the game, you get to hear the first line from a play, poem, or novel, and you need to come up with either the work or the author. Mer beat me eight books to seven, but at least I gave her a good run for her reading.

After the game, we went to Kent to see part of the CVCA hockey team’s game. Our team was undefeated in the conference, and they were playing another team that was undefeated. The game was excellent, but we played a bit poorly in the second period and were down 4-2 when we left after the second period. Our team ended up losing 6-5.

On Friday, it was snowy, but not so bad that we had to stay home. As such, we headed over to school around 5:30 p.m. to see the J-term photography class’ portfolio show. The class had gone to Georgia and South Carolina for the first week, and then used the second week to select and edit photos. The pictures were quite striking. It was a good-sized crowd, and there were refreshments, so it was festive. We then tried to go to a concert that the music-writing J-term class was putting on at a local coffeehouse. The concert started at 8:00, and we got there right at 8:00 and could not get in the door because the place was packed. We decided we had given it a game shot, and we headed home.

I do have to say that I am a fan of J-term. I like the classes and the results, and people seem to have a good time. It is also really fun to have Mer be fairly stress-free for a whole month (Christmas break and J-term).