Meow! I am an adorable, lovable, cute kitten named Myoky in ancient Egypt. People in Egypt love cats so much that they worship them. Some cats even get to wear hoop earrings like me. In this story, my owner Cleopatra falls in love with two emperors, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony. Cleopatra was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 69 B.C. She was queen more than 2,000 years ago. But before she was queen, a man named Ptolemy, a general, became king after Alexander the Great died.
Cleopatra is very smart, charming, and kind, and this is how she won back her kingdom from her brother and fell in love with an important Roman General. In 51 B.C. her father died, and that left the throne to Cleopatra and her younger brother. Her younger brother was Ptolemy the 13th, and he was not interested in being king so that left Cleopatra to the throne. But Ptolemy the 13th’s advisors did not want Cleopatra to be queen, so they kicked her and me out of Alexandria. Cleopatra went into Syria. Suddenly, a Roman general named Julius Caesar suspiciously entered into Alexandria. When Cleopatra found out that Caesar was in Alexandria, she returned to Alexandria. At Alexandria, Cleopatra decided to visit Julius Caesar. But how would she get to the castle to talk to Julius Caesar? Then I Myoky, gave her an idea because of course I am the smartest, cutest, and most sneaky cat in all of Egypt. That night a friend that Cleopatra trusted rolled her up into a rug and got into Alexandria as if the rug was a gift to Caesar. Cleopatra and Caesar had a whole night to talk. Caesar understood Cleopatra’s situation and he decided to help her. He wanted to end the fight and make Cleopatra and her brother co rulers again. Caesar and Cleopatra went into war with Ptolemy. After a dreadful, downer, and defective fight, Caesar and Cleopatra defeated Ptolemy’s army and drowned Ptolemy in the Nile River. Sadly, a Roman Senate stabbed Caesar at a meeting on March 15th,44 BC and Cleopatra was heartbroken.
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For my yearly Back-to-School post, I would like to reflect on our family’s love for out loud reading. Good strength to all in your September return to learning. God bless your studies in this new school year!
Do you ever daydream? I do. Many of my daydreams are possible now and some are possible later. Girl scouts is a dream possible now, and becoming a doctor can wait for later.
Of all the children’s picture books we have read or reviewed for our yearly 
“I mean, like, with culturally relevant teaching…[?]…” her high-pitched voice droned, lilting upwards at the end of the phrase as if everything said was more of a question than a statement. Was she really that unsure of what she was saying or was it a habit learned from an academy which no longer believed truth to be something definitive? I was sitting through yet another required teacher training seminar wondering if I was the only one in the room more interested in the message than in these interminable lectures on teaching methods. Yet this particular post-modern drill sergeant took the message/method dichotomy a step further than I had ever heard it taken. She delivered a conclusion to her talk that can only make sense to a brain thoroughly washed in ideology and completely abandoned by common sense: “It doesn’t matter what we teach our students…[?] as long as we teach them with the right method.” 
Like Mendicant Monks... 