I'm finally starting to feel a little better. After sleeping for the past four days, it was nice to be back in the classroom today. I had the blessing (curse?) to try to teach a class of 8- and 9-year-olds the ins and outs of this ridiculously complicated language. One little girl wanted to know why "I-G-H" makes a long "I" sound. Why? I have no idea why it does. It just does! But she wouldn't just take my word for it.

"Ellen Teacher," she shouted. "No! I-G-H, I. No! I-G-H, ig-huh. Yes! I, no! Ig-huh, yes!"

"No," I said. "I. Long I. Not ig-huh. I."

"Why?"

"Look," I said and wrote "night" on the chalkboard. "N-I-G-H-T. N-igh-t. Night."

"No, Teacher! N-I-G-H-T. Nig-hut. Nig-hut."

I could tell I was getting nowhere. The argument continued for another couple minutes, using other examples of words in which "-igh-" is pronounced as a long "I" and not as "ig-huh" as she insisted: right, high, light, bright . . .

Finally she sat down, put her chin on the desk, and looked right at me. "English very difficult."

Well, she was right about that at least!