Sunday, January 2

Zebulon


Zebulon in his first year of secondary school at Magdalen College School, associated with Oxford, and founded in 1480. Magdalen ranked the number-one secondary school in Great Britain two years running based on A levels. 

As Zebulon's family moved to Oxford with little notice on Alain's professorship, Zebulon sat the entrance exam with zero preparation which is like taking the SATs without Stanley Kaplan. Naked. He crushed it. Nita tells me Zebulon, in class, gets the hard questions right while suffering the unchallenging maths. His teacher comments on this. Such motivational concerns, I might suggest, a luxury. 

 The boy has a charming curiosity, easy in discourse, and mature for his years. We discuss his favorite subject, geography, and he tells me the regional topographies from last semester. Next year, South America and the Andes. Cool. 

Zebulon, his brothers, and Eitan and Madeleine get on famously and Zebulon treats Madeleine as one of the boys which is tip tops with her. Us parents marvel at their joy and I find them, last night, in their beds, jammed together, 10PM .. reading.

"The merry year is born
Like the bright berry from the naked thorn.
"

--Hartley Coleridge