back to school

hallelujah!  jj had her first day of school.  she carefully picked out her outfit to not be too informal, yet not too showy.  she wore her new blue striped french sailer shirt and jeans.  i walked her to the bookshop to help her buy a required book, but then she wanted to walk the rest of the way to school on her own.  she does not need to arrive until her first class which starts on mondays at 9:15.  the lower grades all start at 8:30, so when she got there, the front door was closed and she wasn't quite sure how she was supposed to enter.  luckily her "double" appeared down the street who showed her to ring the doorbell, and she would be buzzed in.  as i mentioned before, her double is the other half asian violin playing girl from boston.  and guess what she was wearing?  yep, a blue striped french sailer shirt and jeans!   so, it didn't take long before they were being referred to as "the twins".  it was predictable.  anyway, jj had a good day.  she joined up with her new friends and their new gang, who were mostly other "adaptation" girls (non fluent in french, recently arrived from foreign lands).  she went through the day, learning the ropes of where to go, which hallways were one-way and how to get lunch.  she said most of the day was in english.  the directrice of the adaptation program has encouraged them to speak as much french as they could, knowing that it was actually too easy to speak english.

when jj is home, i spend a lot of time hovering over her trying to keep her from spending the whole day in front of the computer or trying to get her out to do an activity.  we have been spending a lot of good family time together, for the last 2 months.  right now p is away in amsterdam at a conference and jj has finally gone back to school.  i hadn't realized how i had been missing my solo time.  i came back to the apt and got right to painting.  i was very happy. it was easy to get to work.  i have been spending a lot of time on the maynard, the dog, portrait.  lots of details.  i am keeping a record of how long it is taking me.  as with any human portrait, there are many subtleties to get right to get a likeness.  anyway, i will post an image soon. Print this post