september.

According to my Susan Miller Astrology Zone monthly forecast, Mercury will be in retrograde this month. This means:

"miscommunications could cause real problems, so make a concerted effort to be understood. If you are in important talks, keep summarizing what you think the other person has said to you, to be sure you have picked up the right message. No one would ever fault you for doing that."

Does this account for my fumbling, bumbling idiocy today during class? The blank stares that all of my students landed on me at one point?

Does this account for the text-speak email I received from a student? Or, from another student, the email composed of not one, not two, but three run-on sentences?

Also, do you know that college freshmen will snicker and giggle if they see the phrase, "the person who reared you," and they will also not know what this means? Okay. Maybe I would giggle too. I'm thinking about awarding (rewarding?!) 3 bonus points to every student who can adequately argue whether it is more correct to use "reared" than it is to use "raised" in reference to children.

Which is more correct in the previous paragraph: rewarding or awarding? Someone please help me remember.

Do I need to reword this entire entry? Quite possibly.