Three Scholastic Labour-Monkeys

Today has been one long work session, with a few breaks for eating, as we finish Gi.'s and Ge.'s presentation. Gi. is the most avid worker (very conscientious); I've worked a lot too but demanded lots of five- and ten-minute breaks; Ge. helps periodically but spent much of his time with his nose in the sources, calmly remarking now and then that he had reached exactly the same point Gi. and I were at. We collaborated on a summary of Germany and Austria's history from the time of Charlemagne through the Thirty Years' War and the Silesian Wars to World War I; we continued with a short review of World War II and the after-war years. I feel a little guilty because our knowledge of most events is wholly superficial. We have dispatched the Thirty Years' War and World War II in a handful of not-so-comprehensive sentences each; but in forty-five minutes one probably can't discuss them much more anyway. But Gi. has also printed out lots of maps, and now he and Ge. are reading the presentation out loud and finding (and correcting) quite a few errors.

J. had his share of labour, too. For much of the day he alternately moped, did homework, and read a Winnie the Pooh tale (his reading list is most eclectic) with a decidedly cheerful face. Papa worked away on a mathematical formula, I gather, when he wasn't helping J.; Mama, among other things, read Gaudy Nights by Dorothy L. Sayers. T., who prepared dinner, is now sitting at the computer and listening to Baroque music.

It was cloudy today; when it was dark a lightning storm began. There was impressive thunder twice or thrice, and for at least half an hour lightning was nearly constantly flickering in the sky. There was another flash just now; this is the longest lightning storm that I can remember. It has also rained heavily, and somewhere streets and cellars have probably flooded.

Anyway, I think it will be lovely when, tomorrow afternoon, we will no longer be thinking, eating and sleeping German and Austrian history.