Rainy Day Beauty and a Vocabulary Lesson

We woke up to hear rain dripping into the eaves during the night. The rain continues. Cold. Heavy skies. Today I invigilated a simulation of an AP Calculus exam. Mind-numbing. The script is strict to ensure fairness throughout the world. The invigilator may not read, mark papers, or do anything unrelated to the exam. I thought a lot. Time moved very slowly. Three actual exams to invigilate in the next couple of weeks. I'll be thinking a lot. Maybe about blog posts.

But when I arrived home, this beautiful rhododendron in my yard, to which I've never paid much attention, seemed to say, "Here, look at me, I'm so pretty." And so I did. Then I went inside to get my camera. 
 

The raindrops only served to enhance the pink delicacy of these blooms. And why have I never noticed the dark speckles on the upper petals? Or the long stamens seemingly tipped with gold?  How much do I miss everyday because I don't take the time to look? What new thing have you noticed recently?

Moving on to vocabulary. Invigilate seems to be used in Canada where USA uses the word proctor. One proctors an exam in Washington, one invigilates an exam in British Columbia. However, in British (I think) and Canadian usage, the word proctor is strictly a noun, not a verb. Thus, a proctor may invigilate an exam, but an invigilator may not proctor an exam. 

As my linguistics major daughter tells me, language is a fluid thing. It certainly changes from country to country. When I lived in Ecuador and taught at an American school, I once used the word invigilate and the principal thought it sounded like something out of the wild west, a term that evoked coming out with guns blazing. 

So I'm a bit of a language nerd. If you've read the whole thing, you probably are, too.