Exercising futility

     Well, hello there you few poor stragglers.  It's been awhile, I know.  Every time I come back to Blogger, I have renewed intentions of writing more consistently.   You'll note, it's been mostly a biannual exercise in futility. Facebook and Twitter are terrible for writing stamina, encouraging shorter blurbs and pithy remarks rather than content and reflection. I am hopeful of a better run this time, though.  I am renewing my intentions to practice what I preach when it comes to writing.  Although the nature of the beast here is certainly more informal and conversational than academic writing, it's a way to limber up before the heavy lifting, so to speak.
     I have finally completed my second license in ESL, and am merely waiting for the state to sign off on the new license, or cash the check, whichever comes first.  This means I am currently finished with graduate classes, at least for the time being.  I may eventually decide to complete an entire MS vs. the licensure only option, but I need a break.  Wrapping up meant a couple of weeks of student teaching in the "new" content area, so just about the time summer started, I was back to work again.  When I finished that, I wrapped up all the paper- and portfolio work, and lo and behold, it was July.
     I had a couple of weeks scrambling to work on a Shakespeare project, then began slowly heading back to my classroom to get organized and ready for the upcoming school year, which begins the day after Labor Day.  I needed a bit of a head start as we are now less than two weeks (Holy crap, did I just say less than two weeks? I did.  ACK!) from our two-week trip abroad to Scotland and Holland.
Last time we went, we spent much of the trip telling each other, "Next time, we have to bring the kids." We weren't expecting "next time" to be quite so soon, but Karlijn, our second Little Dutch Girl, is getting married, and we wanted to be there.  As we hemmed and hawed over costs and possible itineraries, we noted that her wedding year coincides with Scotland Homecoming, a promotion which occurs every five years, and that the coinciding Clan Macdougall gathering (iPastor's maternal clan) is the weekend before her wedding.  A quick search found it was actually slightly LESS expensive to fly into Glasgow and back out of Amsterdam than a round trip.  I'm sure it was a serendipitous glitch in fares, which bounce unabashedly, but we're completely taking advantage of it.  And yes, this time, we are taking the kids, plus Thing 2's boyfriend, who's been around for five years and totally counts as family at this point.  So, we will spend a week in the area near Oban, Scotland, then fly to Amsterdam and spend much of our time near Utrecht, Netherlands.  Then we will come home and immediately get caught up in the festivities surrounding the wedding of iPastor's stepbrother.
     This format feels much like a letter to distant but fondly-remembered friends, which it very much is in many cases.  I will do my best to write more often and post pictures from the trip.