*Because of many of my VIPKID students celebrating Chinese New Year this week, I changed my availability schedule for the next few days. Today I taught students this morning like I regularly do. I also taught some students tonight, which I don’t regularly do. I did not schedule any classes for the next three mornings, but have some scheduled for Monday and Tuesday nights. Wednesday I have no classes scheduled!! This will be the first time since the end of October that I haven’t got up early to teach. I even let myself stay up late tonight, because I knew I would get more sleep tonight!!
*I was hoping we would get snow today, but it was just a lot of rain here in Kellogg. I am sure the mountains were getting snow, which is a good thing. By evening, the temperature had fallen, the wind started blowing, and the snow started falling. \
*As I was finishing up classes this evening, a delicious smell started wafting down in the basement where I was teaching. I had put some fish out to thaw for dinner, and Paul had taken it and made a delicious vegetable and fish stir fry and he also steamed some broccoli. It was wonderful. Yep, Paul treats me pretty good! (His dad Burton was a good role model!!)
*There was a fun connection I made between the book I am reading Rules of Civility, and the show I am watching on Netflix The West Wing. Both make reference to a list written by George Washington titled Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. President Bartlett made reference to it in the episode Six Meetings Before Lunch. Even though I haven’t read the whole book, I am assuming Washington’s list was the inspiration for the title of Towles book. I look forward to seeing how it comes into play more as I continue reading the story. Here is a description I found that explains a bit about the list.
By age sixteen, George Washington had copied out by hand, 110 rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. They are based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. Presumably they were copied out as part of an exercise in penmanship assigned by young Washington's schoolmaster. The first English translations of the French rules appeared in 1640, and are ascribed to Francis Hawkins, the twelve-year-old son of a doctor. Richard Brookhiser, in his book on Washington wrote, "all modern manners in the western world were originally aristocratic. Courtesy meant behavior appropriate to a court; chivalry comes from chevalier - a knight. Yet Washington was to dedicate himself to freeing America from a court's control. Could manners survive the operation? Without realizing it, the Jesuits who wrote them, and the young man who copied them, were outlining and absorbing a system of courtesy appropriate to equals and near equals. When the company for whom the decent behavior was to be performed expanded to the nation, Washington was ready. Parson Weems got this right, when he wrote that it was 'no wonder every body honored him who honored every body.'"
The first three items included on this list are as follows:
- Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.
- When in Company, put not your Hands to any Part of the Body, not usually Discovered.
- Shew Nothing to your Friend that may affright him.
If you are curious as to what 110 rules comprise this list, you can find it here.
Rule 110: Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.
No comments:
Post a Comment