Tonight I went to the drawing session in Old Town that rthe artist co-op sponsors every Thursday. The result above (second of two drawings in about an hour and a half) is unusual for me in that I did not need to haul out an eraser the entire time spent on it. One enjoyable new element is the use of some darker paper and a light pencl for highlights - more fun than just dark-on-white drawing.

This is actually sort of a fun exercise, as there are other artists present, including a couple of retired teachers. Eventually I may try painting from life in this compressed timeframe.


A very sweet abuelita from El Salvador who is in my ESL class. She always stands up when I call on her, because that is the way classrooms were when she was a schoolgirl - to show respect for the maestro.

Earlier in the day, I taught my first English as a Second Language (ESL) class to some Mexican and Central American immigrants. It wasn't as scary as I anticipated - actually it was sort of fun. And I think it will be more of an opportunity for me to learn Spanish than I expected.

When I last worked at the food bank yesterday, one of the other volunteers told me she was asked by an acquaintance if we checked to be sure our clients were not illegal immigrants, implying that their hunger wasn't sufficient qualification for our services. Hearing this made me wonder how much the rhetoric of politicians runing on anti-immigrant platforms is responsible for such cruelty and selfishness.

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