Day 119--Isn't it Friday Yet?

I've decided I have a cold. My throat has been hurting for a week, but just in the morning when I wake up. So I didn't think much of it, but I've been really tired too. I finally put that together and realized maybe I'm a little sick. Well, I guess I realized it yesterday when my voice started sounding terrible. So I can be a little less hard on myself for the amount of school we've done lately (and the amount of laying around).

Today was better as far as school goes. We finished our questions about Anne of Green Gables. Oh my goodness, they just hated the "write about a book" assignment. Sarah declared she would never do another one like it. I told her that she probably would if she goes to college. I want to teach them fortitude in the matter, but it was torture. She was especially unhappy with how badly it came out. It's totally boring for her to read. I let her read mine, and it's pretty boring too. I haven't read Rachel's yet, but she hasn't complained much. She is a grown up though, right?

We were talking about algebra and how you just keep adding to your skills and using them all instead of mastering a concept and leaving it alone. But there are a couple concepts in algebra that you don't use much after learning them, like imaginary numbers. I told Rachel I don't remember learning it in high school, I don't remember learning it in college algebra when I was 18, I don't remember Wilson learning it, and I had no idea what it was when I came across it in my current college algebra class. We decided that's because it's made up. It is imaginary after all. If I had an imaginary friend at my age, I'd have to get counseling; so what am I supposed to do with imaginary numbers?!

Streams to the River, River to the Sea is killing us. I mentioned how it had no emotion already, but we're not sure if we can finish it. I don't know why I want to finish; they don't care. And I'm not the kind that has to finish every book if we hate it. I do like to finish most of them though. I looked in the front of the book and saw that the reading level is 5th or 6th grade (I guess). I'm not really sure what the levels mean. I don't usually read books that have a level, because if a book is good, isn't it good for everyone? I've been reading good, real books to them all their lives. So I guess it was written down for kids. It's so sad. It could have been so much better if the story had been the focus and not the "level" of the reading. Was it C.S. Lewis that said something like: No book is worth reading at the age of 10 that's not worth reading at the age of 50? I wholeheartedly agree!

Here's a picture of Eliza. She's getting so big! See you tomorrow!