A Confederacy of Dorkses

Thoughts for today:
While watching the Chicago Jewish Day School kids on recess, I talked to one of the other teachers about how the really spacy kid isn't considered weird or ostracize. In the whole school, there isn't any child who is particularly ostracize. The first grade gets mean to one another, but hardly anyone is singled out exclusively, and the kid that comes closest to class dork still plays with the alpha personalities. Problems are solved by saying, "Tell Sarah how that makes you feel," and it actually works.
I was thinking about my own experiences in public school and about how I'm sure they toughened me up for the "real world" because reality is mean and petty. But a lot of the very functional grown-ups were raised in similarly sheltered environments and they turned out fine. Perhaps in the greater scheme of things they tend to be dorkier, but I don't think they notice or care. In the world of social pettiness, ignorance is perfectly acceptable bliss. May I please go back and redo my childhood in the unaware bubble of a small wealthy homogeneous private school? Reality's all relative anyway; I'd like to try one where I'm not "different."

Today's soundtrack included an excellent Beethoven sampler CD that had the second movement from whichever symphony it is that I always love but can never remember which number*, and the JK's welcome song, in Hebrew, to the tune of Are You Sleeping? Very strange to have the two stuck in my head simultaneously all day, but perhaps a bit better than in high school when my AP Calculus teacher put all the important rules to music and the tune of Jingle Bells constantly ran through my head with the words "F of x, f of x" instead.

*7. I just looked it up.