Reasons Why I Love Marvel Films

(an open letter of appreciation to everyone involved with the MCU that will never get read but that I want to write anyway)

I've been on a major Marvel movie kick lately, and I've been thinking about why they are so enjoyable.  Here's what I've come up with so far.

1)  A legitimate effort at fun has been made - Every day, it seems like the news is full of new horrors. People are killing each other for no legitimate reason.  Things are disappearing or being used up. Both America and the world seem to be increasingly divided.  People are just plain hateful to each other based on differences which make no difference.  Our political landscape is filled with a wide array of non-choices we'll have to pick from in a few month.

One of the greatest uses of entertainment is being able to escape all that, even for 120 minutes, and Marvel films do that so well.  The interplay between the characters is always a delight.  The snark between Hawkeye and Quicksilver in Age of Ultron. Tony Stark bating...pick a character.  Anyone.  Everyone, really.  Ant Man in Iron Man's wiring or in Sam's Falcon suit. Ant Man getting punched in the face by Hope.  Happy getting taken down by the Widow.  Spiderman and Bucky.  (Spiderman and everybody.) The entire Bucky/Sam dynamic.  One of my favorite scenes of all time was in Civil War when all those huge, ridiculously powerful guys are crammed into that old Volkswagen and Bucky asks Falcon to move his seat but Sam refuses.  It was short, little compared to the huge drama going on, but it was perfect.  My immediate thought was, "Actual Crap Guys Do."  I still snicker thinking about it.

And don't even get me started on Deadpool.  That entire film is just a gift.

2)  A legitimate effort at more than just escapism has also been made - Because they're not just fluff.  Even when we laugh at the one-liners, we can come away from the films thinking seriously about important concepts.  Loyalty (and who deserves it), purpose, self-definition, coping with situations that we can't control, the need for second chances, who gets to write history and tell stories, the effects of conflict and violence on the macro and micro level, it's all in there.  If you don't believe me, go to Tumblr for about five minutes and look at the way that talking about Marvel films is allowing people to talk about the very same real-world issues they help people escape for a minute, too.

It's a little like Shakespeare to me.  (I'm going somewhere with this.  I promise.  Don't throw things or pass out.)  He used these fabulous characters and riveting stories to present important ideas.  Mercutio is fabulous, so sparkly he almost steals the entire play from that other moody teen, but what we need to learn from him is that his excess destroys him and that friends can get caught up in our drama whether we intend them to or not.  Hamlet, with all his intelligence and sublime skill with language, teaches us it is possible to wait too long and that everybody suffers from it.  Macbeth shows us what happens when ambition subsumes loyalty and character.  And on and on.  This is a whole separate blog post from me, so I'll stop here.  What I'm saying is that the MCU films do a lot of this same kind of thing.  There's something deeper at the core of them that makes them more than blockbuster entertainment.

3) Even though it can't be easy to be an actor for these films, they always look like they like each other and like what they do - I know that being a part of something like the MCU has got to be a big choice for an actor for a lot of reasons.  I assume they are physically rigorous films, especially since many of the actors seem to be doing as many of their own stunts as they can.  They also seem to require long commitments to the franchise.  I don't know if that's a bad thing or not, but I'm assuming it limits what actors are allowed to do otherwise even though most of the MCU films do well at the box office.

I also figure that being a part of something like MCU denies those actors a great deal of the pleasure of being an anonymous person.  I'm just a lowly school teacher, nothing so public and glorified as a film actor, but I actually love to go hang out with my friends who live in other cities just for the sheer pleasure of not having to worry about who I'm going to see that might know me. I'll never forget the time I got one of my ear piercings redone and came to school the next day to be told, "We saw you getting your ears done."  I hadn't seen them, and the entire thing was paranoia-inducing.  Where were they?  Why did they care?  Was I floating around out there in a Snapchat getting my ears repierced?  Jesus....  If it's like that for me as a public school teacher, can you even imagine what it is like to be one of the actors in these films?  Is there anywhere they can enjoy being just them and not Cap or Nat, Bucky or Tony Stark?  I hope so.  Everybody deserves a place to be simply themselves.

The biggest thing I guess I'm talking about is the apparently endless parade of interviews and convention panels.  Because I have a board on Pinterest called Geekery that I add stuff to from Doctor Who, Star Wars, MCU films, etc., I see a bajillion interview pins (again, probably mostly assembled from things from Tumblr, that frothing bastion of fandom, God bless it).  It has to get old.  I wonder how many thousand times they get asked the same questions.  Some of the things I see they've been asked are things I wouldn't be able to respond to well, but they always seem to stay classy (reasons they're actors and I'm not, probably).

In spite of all these things that would be drawbacks to me, they also always look like they like each other and are having a lot of fun. They support each other, defend each other from the really brainless, tactless, and crass questions.  I really hope that's true.  I hope that they look forward to making these movies and mess around on set and during those ridiculous interviews and are basically just happy.  Maybe they don't all hang out at one of the hundred-and-eighty-seven-guys-named-Chris's houses on the weekend, but while they're there, it seems like they're having a blast. It increases the enjoyment of the films to me to think that it's in some way an effort of friends.

4) The female characters kick ass - The women are as interesting and strong as the men and nobody acts like that's anything other than the way it should be.  I have loved Wonder Woman since I was a little girl small enough to fit into Underoos, and I have always, always wanted to see a film in which she was not a cameo or just done wrong.  Marvel doesn't seem to have that issue. They aren't afraid of women who can hold their own. I can't wait to see Hope Pym as the Wasp.  When the Scarlet Witch blasted Vision through the floor in Civil War, I (silently) cheered.  Kick that ass, girl.  I'm still catching up on the Daredevil series, but Electra is so very well done, deadly and complicated.  And yes.  Like the rest of America, I do want an entire Black Widow movie.  She deserves it. (And throw some Red Room Bucky up in that, too.)

5) They are not afraid of brokenness - All of the MCU heroes have big, huge faultlines running right up the middle of them.  Serious things have happened to them, things they couldn't control.  They've made choices the best they could or had all their choices taken from them.  Accidents have happened.  They lost things.  They lost people they loved.  They've lost part or all of themselves.

Bucky is the poster boy for this and one of my very favorite characters in the entire MCU. Each time we see him in the films, he is picking the pieces of his life up and sorting through them. Even though he has been as destroyed as a person can be, with the help of his friends, he is trying to put those pieces back in place. Sebastian Stan does an amazing job showing this process.  Bucky can't be easy to play.

This is what real life does.  All that ugliness I mentioned at the top that surrounds us every day is doing this stuff to us, and we have to pick ourselves up and deal with whatever remains.  I think the MCU heroes do an excellent job of giving hope that it is possible to stand up and keep trying.  Sure, we're never going to be kidnapped by HYDRA, twisted by the Red Room, recreated by the mind stone, but we are going to get knocked down, hurt in hearts, minds, and bodies, and there's a lot to be said for seeing survival of the worst in fiction.  It's important to have stories that show us people can overcome.

6) The villains are complicated - As a million little Loki fangirls will attest, even Marvel's bad guys aren't simple.  Maybe it's the richness of the decades of source material and all the incarnations they've gone through as different writers shaped the characters, but instead of just big powerful evil, there's always a reason. There's always a backstory.  They aren't Iagos; they're Claudiuses. (And I promise, that's my last Shakey reference.) The Marvel villains are the flip side of the hero's brokenness.  They show us what happens when you choose NOT to get up.  When you choose to hold on the the darkness instead of finding some way to purge it or leave it behind.  They are as important in that dynamic as the heroes are.

My favorite of them is almost inevitably Wilson Fisk.  D'Onofrio always amazes me with the depth he brings to anything he plays, and his portrayal of the many, many layers behind Kingpin is one of the main reasons I like Daredevil so much.  The character is absolutely terrifying, utterly ruthless, but as the details of his becoming are revealed, it becomes possible to have compassion for him.  Then he decapitates somebody with a car door, and you are not quite sure how to feel.  That's the way a good villain is supposed to function.

7)  The characters grow and change - Captain America has undergone this beautiful and complex transformation, but all of them evolve.  The Tony Stark we saw in Civil War wasn't the same guy from Iron Man.  All the characters in Daredevil are shifting, and it's impressive to watch.  Even fairly newly-introduced characters like the Scarlet Witch and the Black Panther have changed dramatically from who they were when we first met them.  Others are poised on the edges of that kind of change, especially Bucky, and I hope we get to see it happen. Real life leaves marks.  When characters don't change due to what they encounter, they're allegories, and while allegories are interesting, I don't think we learn as much about survival from them as we do from more dynamic characters.

And I could probably go on, but I'll stop here.  It may seem kind of an odd thing for me to write about, but it's what was on my mind today.  Gotta go watch a movie.

Another Galaxy

I have been waiting for years, literally years, to upgrade my phone.  I got a Galaxy S4 and made the great leap from iPhone to Android, and I loved it.  Loved, loved, loved it.  I could customize it the way I wanted.  It was friendly with my PC.  It was sleek and lovely, and it made me as happy as any electronic device is going to be able to do.

But time went by....

It started being a little insufficient to the demands I was making on it about a year ago, but Samsung was going through its "no SD card" phase.  Since that was the primary feature I had changed operating systems for, I decided to wait it out and see what was coming with the S7.

Rumors abounded.  I saw some really crazy ones, too.  Finally, as we got closer to the release, it looked like the card slot was back and the battery life was a priority.  Despite the fact that my own phone needed charging at least twice a day and I had stripped the apps on it down to the minimum so it had enough memory to function, I kept the hope for better things.

Friday was AT&T's release day, and despite the rain, I took myself to my local shop and had them hook me up with the new model.  Life, at least as far as it can be controlled by a cellphone, was instantly better.  Apps that haven't worked right in awhile because they needed the Marshmallow update my S4 was no longer eligible to receive  were smooth and quick again.  There is no annoying warning constantly forecasting the End of All Things because memory is running out.  I could take pictures of all my dogs every second of my life and not fill up the storage.

To my astonishment, my Asus ZenWatch2 started making noises after it got the update it needed to match the phone.  It is constantly doing things I didn't know it was capable of now.  It is almost like it became a totally different device, too, just from being connected to a different phone.  Good.  All things are good.

I also noticed that it synched faster and sounded better with my car stereo system.  I don't know if that's a product of stronger bluetooth or what, but apparently, it also sounds much better for people who call me, too.

In fact, the only things I don't quite like are incredibly minimal.  I miss a certain sound I used to have for text notifications.  I also wish I could make the screens scroll endlessly like they did on my S4.  Both of these things are almost certainly correctable with a download or a setting I haven't been able to locate yet.  They're both so minimal, too, that they are practically non-existent.

It's nice to have confidence in my device again.  Even though I had the irrational moment of sadness when I turned off the S4 for the last time (a part of me always feels like I should have some kind of formal funeral for things like that when their useful life is done), reliability is a comfort.  The S7, then, isn't a revolutionary change.  It's a stronger, faster, more stable, and better version of everything I loved from my S4.  Good job, Samsung.  Very good job.

The Allure of Shiny Tech

Every year I do the AP national reading, I set aside part of that check for something special.  This year, the vast majority of it has been earmarked for the various portions of my National Boards, but as always, I have decided to keep just a little back to spend on something nonessential.

I have a FitBit, and I love it.  I wear it almost all the time, and it really has helped me increase my activity.  (Well, except right now in the summer when it's hotter than nine hells outside and World Cup is on all the time...)  The only thing I wish is that the FitBit had a watch on it.  If I'm going to have something on my my wrist, I wish it could at least tell me what time it is.  There are many situations where I simply cannot pull out my phone, and I do not want to wear a regular watch, so having the time on this slender band would be great.

Recently, a whole new batch of smartwatches has been released by several companies.  I looked at the ones from Samsung, and I liked what I was seeing.  They have gone past the Pebble phase of something functional but quite ugly and are actually becoming interesting.

I was most interested in the Samsung Gear Fit, a combination of fitness band and smartwatch.  When compared to the other things that are available, the design is lovely.  It is designed to do all the things I want one to do, measure my steps, run my music player, show me notifications, tell me the time.  However, when I started doing research on it, the reviews were almost universally lukewarm.  Everyone loves the design but hates the functionality.

I could have dismissed some of the reviews.  Those people expected it to summon a space pegacorn to sweep them to a solid gold house, apparently.  Some of them had such piddly little faults or expected such massive things no simple smartwatch is probably going to be capable of for a long while that I took them with the required grain of salt and moved on.  I probably would have already ordered one except for the repeated claim that it does not measure steps accurately.  One reviewer claimed he'd been sitting in his chair, swung his arm to reach for something, and the Gear Fit registered 36 steps.

Yeah.

That's a problem.

Again, one or two such instances would have been possible to discount.  The fact that almost every single reviewer on every site I checked said much the same means I just can't justify spending the money on a device that isn't what is should be.

There's another option coming later this summer, apparently.  Motorola is going to join the fray, and from the
very vague ads they have, I am optimistic that this could be the thing I need.  For one thing, it looks gorgeous.  It's not a conspicuous square with a technofabulous band that screams, "HEY!  LOOK AT ME!  SMARTWAAAATCH!!!"  Instead, its face is round, its band interchangeable, and with the right clock face selected, it wouldn't draw that much more attention than the old-fashioned analog watches I wore for years and years.

What they say it will do, however, would make my life so much easier.  It has deep Google integration, and just the little teaser previews available here and there promise fitness measuring and everything else I want.  Granted, this one probably doesn't have a "summon pegacorn" setting, either, but that is totally fine by me.  My wants and needs are simple.  (heh)

So I'm still waiting.  I'm sure that as we get closer to the season of commercial feeding frenzy (aka Black Friday/Cyber Monday), more of these devices will appear.  I'm not going to jump on the beta device wagon this time.  I want something that I can use for a long time, and I will wait until it appears.

Twitter Is Blocked in Turkey

....and the people have flipped a big old electronic bird to the oppressor by simply sliding around that block.  I want to stand up and cheer.  The images I see of people spray-painting the DNS numbers to skate around the government ban over Erdogan's own political posters fill me with the same satisfaction all those portraits of Ataturk flying on red backgrounds and plastered accusingly on the walls opposite the presidential residence did when we were last year.

Turkey is so dear to me after the Ottomans course and the travel that went with it.  The people who live in that wonderful place deserve better than their leader is giving them.  What a tremendously condescending insult to think that he has the right to shut them off from the electronic world.  What a tremendously arrogant stance to pretend he has that kind of power.  I keep thinking we're about to have a "V" moment there, and the results will be shown to us by the Instagram feeds, YouTube videos, and tweets of the people who will rebuild what he's tried to tear down and repress.

I want to applaud Twitter and Google, too, for standing up to a world leader who is trying to hide his own sins by denying his people freedom and access.  He's literally trying to cover not only his own eyes with dirty hands but also the eyes of the whole world like a petulant child who cannot get his way.  It heartens me to see them standing up, providing backdoors and work-arounds instead of folding their hands and waiting passively for someone else to do something.

I'm not much of a revolutionary.  I hate politics passionately.  It just makes me furious when I see such a vibrant nation under the heel of such a massive hubris-filled jackass.  So by all means, let's #occupytwitter since #twitterisblockedinturkey.

The Android Life

A little over a month ago, I decided it was time to upgrade my iPhone.  I had been debating whether or not I might want to change from iOS to Android for a long time, doing research and asking people who had the other platform for insights.  It was the day before my birthday when I finally found the time to walk into my local phone store, and as the tech-laden greeter came up to put my name on the waiting list for service, I still didn't know which phone I would walk out with.

One of the good things about the phone store always being so busy is that it gave me more than enough time to walk around and look at all the different models.  I started with the iPhones.  They were comfortable and familiar.  It looked great, and I knew immediately that it would be pleasant to use.

Then I strolled over to the Androids.

I've been using one of the Galaxy tablets from school to set up activities and hunt for apps my students might be able to use on the big class set, so for the first time, the Android devices felt familiar.  I started looking at the specs on memory and other aspects, and I realized that I could put in large memory card and have three times more space than the iPhone I'd been looking at, and the phone, the SD card, and the Otterbox all together would still be less expensive.

That sort of decided me.  Yes, my iPhones have always been tremendously good to me.  They've done hardcore duty all over the globe without batting even the tiniest eyelash.  Standing in that store, though, I couldn't justify spending more money for what was going to be less phone that I really needed. 

As I picked up the devices, the Android also felt good in my hand.  True, it was much larger than the iPhone resting in my jacket.  I had worries that it would be cumbersome to keep up with, too big to slip into a pants pocket.  The more I held it, though, the more I liked the way it filled my palm, the way the screen size increased because of it.

When my name was finally called and the sales associate finally came to ask me what I wanted, I knew I wanted one of the Samsung Galaxy models.  After a brief conversation with him, I settled on the GS4.  He took it over to the service desk, did that magic that they do, and thirty minutes later, I was headed out into the darkness of a February night with it clipped to my beltloops in a Defender holster.

It seems like a small thing, the addition of a new device to my life, but it has actually had a number of really rather profound changes on me.  The first came when I noticed the preloaded Samsung S-Health step counter widget.  I dragged it onto one of my screens out of curiosity, and slowly, I became more and more interested in watching the numbers go up.  I found myself taking extra trips down to the office and the mail room just to get a little more exercise.  This led to my buying a Fitbit Flex, and now I'm tracking movement and calories, and I've lost six pounds.  

I've also sort of rediscovered what a smartphone is all about.  I had gotten into a tremendous rut, it seems, with my apps and my habits.  I didn't get all the same apps I used to have when I was reloading this new phone, and some of the ones I kept work for me now in a totally different way.  Since Android is intimately welded to Google and since I am such a tremendous user of Google stuff, things I do all the time have become much easier.  

When I walked out of the store that night before my birthday, I admit I still had doubts.  It's hard to believe that now.  I know some people have horrible experiences with Android devices and flee back to iPhone as soon as they are able, but I have to say, I don't think that will be me.  This change has been totally for the better.

Travel Companion

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
~ Alice and the Cheshire Cat, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
____________

For a long time, I have wanted to have something to take pictures with on my travels.  I suspect this started when I saw Amalie.  I (and the rest of the entire universe) loved it when she sent her father's gnome travelling.

As a part of the Teachers for Global Classrooms program, I met people who had been doing this for years.  One of them has a sock monkey who actually has his own Facebook page.  Another has a laminated cut out of her high school's mascot.  I started thinking about it again when I saw theirs, but I couldn't find anything that was small enough not to be a nuisance.  I know enough about myself as a traveler to know that if it's a hassle, I'm not going to fool with it.  I considered several items - a small beanie of our school mascot, an exceedingly tiny and grumpy sock monkey, a small blue owl someone gave me - but none of them seemed right.

A couple of weeks ago, a teacher buddy of mine started putting up pictures of a tiny finger puppet of Vincent Van Gogh she'd gotten at a museum.  I had a forehead-smacking moment when I saw it.  I actually have the William Shakespeare from that same series.  I bought it at the Frazier Museum in Louisville the first year I read for the AP test.  It's been guarding my Diet Mt. Dew in my classroom since that summer.

However, I didn't want to travel with Will.  I have so many things that are Shakespeare.  I love him.  I just didn't want to travel with him.  I looked over the line of the puppets from the Unemployed Philosopher's Guild for another option. They're all so cute and funny that the kid in me wanted all of them.  The adult in charge of the checkbook managed to limit that other aspect to purchasing two:  the Cheshire Cat and Emily Dickinson.

I got Chessy today.  I am pretty positive that he will be the one I travel with.  The quote at the top is most of the reason why, but there are other quotes that fit every long journey I've ever been on.  The one that springs to mind is the famous:

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."

As anybody who has ever traveled knows, there comes a point (maybe the exact moment you break out the suitcases) that this quote becomes painfully true....

I also like Chessy because he's a cat. That fits in with many things, the real-life furry beasts sleeping on my furniture that I miss when I'm travelling, the mankei neko I collected in Japan, the mascot of my school.  Cats are also good travel buddies because they remind you to be curious, to dress simply but with elegance, to enjoy any and all luxuries that come your way, and to sniff at unfamiliar things (possibly also while smacking them lightly with your paw) before accepting them.

It's a silly little thing, but I am looking forward to taking Chessie with me to Turkey.  If I can get a picture of him inside the Hagia Sofia, then that's going to be a very good thing.

Orphaned Pencils

Like most people, I have a lot of little idiosyncrasies.  I look for four-leaf clovers every time I walk through a patch while I'm walking my dogs.  I collect bobbleheads when I travel.  My favorite clothing is a literary tshirt.  I always carry a fancy vintage handkerchief.  Added to all these other oddities, I am also a rescuer of orphaned pencils.  

There is something heartbreaking about an abandoned pencil.  I find them frequently on the floor of my classroom, sometimes almost used up, sometimes barely sharpened.  I always scoop them up and put them in a brown ceramic cylinder some student made in Ceramics and left in my room one year.  I call it the lost pencil cup.  Students know to look there for something to write with before they ask me about it.

I think the sadness for me comes from seeing a tool so closely related to all the things my heart holds most dear simply cast aside.  There's power in a pencil, power to change the world, power to change someone's mind, power to change oneself.

When a student comes to class and has no pencil every day, there is a kind of hopelessness to it.  It's like seeing someone who needs to put out a destructive blaze but who has no bucket or hose.  They simply lack the right equipment to save themselves.

A pencil lets a person draw a picture to clarify, solve a math problem, make a list.  It allows a poem to be created, things done or cast aside to be crossed off, dots to be connected.  There is a universe encased in a slim wooden or plastic sheath, infinitely malleable and portable.

There's a quote in You've Got Mail about bouquets of freshly-sharpened pencils.  I always smile when I see that part because I know that feeling.  There really *is* something about a brand new pencil.  They're among my favorite school supplies.

There's something to be said about the old ones, too, though.  When you see a pencil that is only as long as your little finger, that has its eraser gone, even one with the indentations made by teeth or the impact against the edge of a desk or table, you're looking at a battle-scarred veteran of the war against idiocy and ignorance.  It deserves the chance to continue its service.

Today after the last bell, I walked around my room and tidied everything up as I always do.  Under one of the desks in the back, I found one of these forlorn instruments.  Except for its eraser, it had almost no use.  I picked it up, carried it over to the turn-in table, placed it next to the others in the cup.  I gathered all my belongings and headed down the stairs to my car.  On the way, another pencil was sitting on the end of our wide wooden banisters, almost as though it was just waiting for me.  I smiled, tucked it in the back pocket of my school work bag.  Monday, it can join the assembly of orphaned pencils waiting a second chance at usefulness.

All the Anniversaries

It seems like all kinds of important things have major landmark anniversaries this year.  Some examples right off the top of my head:

• The Emancipation Proclamation - 150 years
• Pride and Prejudice - 200 years
• James Bond movie series - 50 years
• The Bell Jar - 50 years
• Doctor Who - 50 years
• The London Underground - 150 years
• James Meredith admission to Ole Miss - 50 years
• The Birmingham Bus Boycott - 50 years
• Wagner born - 200 years
• Medgar Evers slain - 50 years
• Valium approved - 50 years
• Kennedy assassinated - 50 years

That's the short list.  Hmm.  I wonder if this year is going to live up to its predecessors.  

Modern-Day Athena

In my Mythology class, the students had to do an assignment modernizing three gods of their choice from the Greco-Roman or Norse pantheons.  I offered them a model taken from a resource I have where a writer looked at the aspects of the Greek gods and then reinterpreted them for "modern living."  I wanted to read through one of the examples with the class, and so I naturally picked Athena since of the Greek gods, she's probably my favorite.

I felt like somebody had written all about my life instead of this character from myth.  No, I didn't spring fully-formed and armored from my father's head, and the last time I checked, I wasn't able to get any of that ambrosia upon demand, but so much of the rest of it, the personality part of it was spot-on that I felt suddenly conspicuous as I read it.

I don't have a copy in front of me, so I'm quoting from memory, always dangerous and something I may well go back and fix when I get the time.  It said something to the effect of "Athena is capable of sustaining deep, long-term platonic friendships with men" and went on to imply that if she were seen in a restaurant with a guy holding her hand and looking misty-eyed, it was probably because he was telling her about his latest failed whatever.  Damn.  Dead-on.  Dead.  On.  The writer was taking this from Athena's never-ending service as patron/protector to heroes such as Perseus, Jason, and of course, Odysseus.  I know what that's like, to be the friend and confidante all the time.  That sort of is my life.  It's not a bad thing, but occasionally it does get old.  Maybe it did to Athena, too....

The next part was the part that really zapped me though, talking as it did about the need for the "modern day Athena" to get out of her head and into her heart, stop overthinking and overanalyzing  when it comes to relationships.  I felt like saying, "Look.  If you're going to get  this personal and dredge up all my personality flaws, at least quit calling me Athena, okay?"

There was more, too....

Sigh.  Isn't it funny how archetypes keep lasting because they apply to the real world?  I am NOT Athena.  (Have to state that so you don't think I'm...well...crazy.  Okay.  Crazier than usual.  I won't start walking around with one of my owls perched on my shoulder and jabbing things with a pointy stick.  Probably.)  I'm no more divine or goddess-ish than the next woman you meet, but somehow this figure from so long ago and I have the same freaking problems.  And unlike her, I don't get a cool helmet (me and the hats.  again.) or a Medusa-head-adorned shield to deflect the crap I come in contact with.  Boo that.

Why Evernote Is Awesome

1)  It works everywhere.  I mean EVERYWHERE.  I have it on my iPhone.  I have it on my computer(s).  I will have it on whatever tablet I get.  All my crap is available at the slightest whim.  This means I can stand in the middle of Wal-Mart and look up the ingredients I need to make cachasa Brigadero.  And while I might not be able to get all that stuff AT Wal-Mart, it's worlds better than having to tote index cards or not have what I need to try.

2)  The logo.  Have you noticed that it's an elephant?  Elephants (after owls and giraffes) are some of my favorite animals.  It's also a happy-looking elephant.  He's so spiffingly pleased because he hasn't forgotten that document he was going to share with his coworkers on a USB drive that's at home.  This is the secret to happiness, after all.

3)  The ability to make and share notebooks.  Most awesome tool for team collaboration ever.  You can throw anything in, PDFs, web clippings, images, your own freaking handwritten notes, and then pass along the treasure trove to somebody else.  I used to do things like this with ring binders or file folders (which, of course, were never where I needed them).  This is the digital equivalent of my resource cabinet in the back of my classroom.  I want to start my students using them, too, so they can do group research projects with greater ease.

4)  Clearly.  If you're using Chrome and Evernote and haven't managed to stumble on this extension your-own-self, hie it over to the web store and get it now.  It strips pages down to their essentials (removes ads, ornate headers, and other fluff) so all you are saving is something that can be easily edited or printed without taking 487 pages.  It lets you preview and then "clip."  I am preparing all sorts of articles for teaching (Common Core, anyone?) simply by putting them through Clearly when I find them online and then tucking them into notebooks for later.

5) CamScanner.  This one is brand new to me, but it's something I've been needing.  It's an iPhone app that lets you create PDFs by taking pictures with your iPhone's camera.  SHEER GENIUS.  If it works like they say on the tin, it will replace having to take a document to a big scanner for quick recording.  It will also allow me to archive some things that I only have in hardcopy from the days before I did everything digitally.

6)  Did I mention the green elephant?

7) The latest advance in their OCR technology and the fact that they just hooked up with Moleskine to use a specialized notebook to ease scanning in of handwritten stuff.  I admit it, as much of a technophile as I am, I still prefer to use my fountain pen and paper when I need to take notes.  However, having those notes put into Evernote when I'm done allows me all sorts of options I didn't have before.  Since I usually wind up as the "recorder" or "scribe" for every group, I think I can try to do it by hand now and turn it into a PDF, etc., so I don't have to write then type.

I could go on, but I think this is enough.  I am finding new ways to use it all the time.  Tonight, I added an IFTTT action that will archive my Instagram photos automatically, saving me the hassle of individual downloads for each one.  Good stuff, that.  If you're not using it, I think you should at least give it a spin.  Who knows, maybe the green elephant will make you happy, too.

Hugin Lives

My trusty netbook died on me yesterday.  It has been more than a trooper, having been to England, Rome, San Francisco, DC twice, Nashville, Louisville twice, New Orleans a couple of times, and who knows how many other little local trips.  It has been my travel workhorse banging around in my bag and through airport security.  When I was getting ready to go to England for Spring Break, I noticed that it was behaving badly, blue screening me and so forth, but I had hoped it was a software issue that I had remedied.  Apparently not.

I got on NewEgg and started looking.  I managed to find this Acer Aspire One 722.  It's a dual core netbook, and the difference in performance from my old one to this is completely a night/day thing.  I'm amazed at how well this little computer is working.  It settles my mind in so many ways, not having to worry about the old one dying (because that's over with), not having to worry about it hanging up or being insufficient to the tasks at hand, having about as much horsepower under the hood here as with my big laptop (I think).

I kept the name.  This one, too, is Hugin.  I like my paired ravens from myth, and I still find them appropriate.  Just as I had rechristened my 1GB external hard drive Muninn2, the new netbook is HuginII.  The newest incarnations of my sleek black technological birds can fly and deliver now.

It's been a long day of setting up Hugin and trying to get my desktop in the back office working right again.  I had been very neglectful of the desktop, and the antivirus had run out.  That was the least of the problems.  It was in bad shape.  It took HOURS of work to get it unSNAFUed.  It had to be updated, cleaned out, synched, protected, and generally made functional rather than a liability again.  I could not do computers all day everyday.  I would lose my mind.  There are hours of wait-time while they "do their do," and moments of blood pressure elevating frustration when they refuse to do what you want them to do.  Granted, if I were more technically savvy, I might be able to hack through the latter with greater ease, but some things, I think, just take time to walk through all the steps and stages.

I hate that.

Anyway, I do feel some accomplishment in finally getting this big list of tasks taken care of.  I am thrilled with the new netbook.  It should be perfect for keeping in touch with everyone and keeping them up to date with what is going on during my trip.  While I know that the need for it when I travel indicates the level of my technology addiction, I don't really intend to apologize.

City of Death

I'm on a Classic Doctor Who kick, and when I saw this series on Amazon Prime streaming, I almost giggled.  I have been wanting to rewatch it forever.  I haven't seen it in years and years, and it is one of the best of the classic DWs.

There are so very many things that make this one good.  I hardly know where to begin.  There's the fact that this was the first series to be filmed outside the UK.  Therefore, the locations aren't cheesy backlots.  They make much of that.  You get to see lots of Paris, and it really makes a difference somehow.

The setting, though, isn't nearly as great as the dialogue in this one.  Tom Baker's DW years always had good witty repartee between the main characters.  I think that if it wasn't there, he was sort of ad libbing it as he went.  This series was mostly written by Douglas Adams (and if you don't know who he is, turn in your Geek Card now) and it just sparkles like a gem in bright light.  Everybody is clever.  The baddies are clever.  The secondary characters get good lines.  And the Doctor and Romana, well, the Doctor and Romana absolutely scintillate.

There is so much to love in this.  You get science fiction and time travel but bound up with the most human of things, quite literally, in some cases.  There's great art and artists, too.  In fact, the Mona Lisa becomes a key touchstone of the whole thing, something that probably endears this episode to me even more since I have such a fascination with that piece of art.  (I know.  Me and half the world.  But still.)  There is even a brief John Cleese cameo I had totally forgotten.

It is, then, in every possible way, perfect.  If you've never seen Doctor Who before or only watched the new series, this is a good place to start.  There are other episodes I like better to be sure.  The Pyramids of Mars  and Sutekh's absolute Egyptian camp cannot be defeated for first place in my heart of hearts, but this one with its charm and its wit are probably running a close second.

Google Play and Google Drive

I stumbled across an article on Lifehacker that led me to another article on Lifehacker (I swear, it's like a maze, and at some point, you will wind up on something that references binder clips....) that dumped me on a page that was talking about Google Play.  I had probably seen it at some point when it was introduced, but I didn't really pay much attention to it, since it is aimed at Android users (and I'm not one) and tablet folk (not me, either, yet).  As usual when one reads something on LH, though, the "duh moment" occurred, and I began to see a whole other universe of uses for Google Play.

So far, I've looked at a couple of streaming music services, and they're fine.  Spotify is fairly nifty, and Pandora is okay.  In fact, I owe Pandora for a couple of artists I really like.  I enjoy it for discovering new folks.  Spotify, if I were looking to pay people for a service (which I'm not.  I'm poor like that, see?) would be great on my iPhone.  I only use the streaming stuff on my iPhone more or less.  (Well, and Pandora through my Roku, but that's a different conversation.)

What I've always dreamed of is having all my music on my iPhone.  I change music moods constantly, and I have very diverse listening tastes.  My library isn't as big as some people's I know, but it isn't exactly tiny, either. That's a crapload of GB on an iPhone that won't hold all that and my pictures and my apps and my...  You get it.  Enter the everlovin' Cloud.

I am, even as we speak, uploading all my music to Google's cloud through Play.  It is going to take about fifty years, probably since my connection on this DSL is CRAP, but it will get there.  I already have access to more music online than I do on my phone.  Granted, there are restrictions (a live internet connection), but when I have it, I have all my music and my playlists everywhere.  It makes good sense for me to use Google for this, too, because although I am not an Android user, I am a hardcore Google user everywhere else.   This is a very good thing.

I added the gmusic app from the iTunes app store (since Apple and Google can't play nice together and required a third party) and this was really the only missing piece.  There is a native web interface from Google, but without the gmusic app, Google Play won't play in the background, and getting to playlists, etc., is a bit clunky.  The only complaint I've had so far with any of it is that my iHome dock seemed weirded out by it in a way that it never is by iTunes.  This is a very, very minor thing, and, I think, a compatibility issue with the gmusic app, not with Google Play itself since I ran them both on the sleep timer and it turned off the native web interface fine but couldn't kill the app...  O_o  Lesson learned there.

Added to all this wonderfulness is that I have Google Drive now.  It's basically just Dropbox by Google, but because it's by Google, it seamlessly integrates with everything else by them I use (which is everything) making my life worlds easier.  I love them. This is it.  This is the dream come true.  All my stuff everywhere without having to carry around a huge laptop of doom.  I don't have all my documents in my Google Drive folder, but I keep the ones that are important and needed there.

The feeling of knowing that I can pull them up on my phone and send them to whomever or share them with others through Google Docs while I'm sitting in a waiting room somewhere or in a meeting instead of having to wait until later (or in my case, possibly forget...damn you, Topamax) is extremely comforting.  When John Q. Student has a crisis (and can't get into the Docs locker) and needs PowerPoint  or handout X to resolve it, I can tap, send, and we can all be a little happier.  This is a good thing.

I know there are people out there who hate Google.  Well, that's okay.  To each his own.  They are making my life a whole lot easier, and I'm grateful to them for it.  If other people want other solutions, fine.  Spiffy.  Corking.  The only thing I guess I have to say is from the Rolling Stones then..."Hey, you, get off of my Cloud...."  Because you know what?  Right now, it's working fine for me.

Get Your Language....Here

I just added the Google Translate dropdown menu gadget to the blog.  It will put all the wonder that is here into  50 or more different languages.  Knock yourself out.  I know this makes your life complete now.  You're welcome.

Athena and Me

(here there be stupid stuff.  you have been warned.)

Don't ask what started me chasing this rabbit.  I don't even know.  But now I'm deep into it, and it's turned into a full-on blog.  If you have something better to do, well, you know...

Probably it was this morning when I was getting ready.  I pulled my owl necklace out of the box and put it on, the one I got at the Parthenon in Nashville.  It's a little silver replica of Athena's owl, and I smiled when I fastened the clasp, thinking that I had at least a few other things than my fondness for owls in common with the mythical lady.  I started running those over in my head.

Then I got curious.  I don't know that I've ever really looked up stuff on just Athena.  I've researched background for stories in which she is a major character, and I know her basic aspects, but now my little research monster was hungry, so...

It's sort of funny and frightening.  The owls behind me are looking on in calm amusement.  Yeah.  I have one or two things in common.  For instance:

• War Goddess -- She's not into the stupid raging bloodlust side (that's her brother Ares) but rather strategic butt-kicking. She is, and I quote, a warrior maiden.  Check.  Where's my sword?
• She Likes Her Men Smart -- Who does she support/mentor/back/pick?  Not the Achilles/Ajax crew.  Nope.  Odysseus.  Jason (before he gets dumb and dumps his witch wife).  Heracles.  She goes for the smart ones.  Check again. 
• Good with Her Hands -- The metalwork of weapons is in her hands.  So is weaving.  She can make stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Have you seen my work room?
• Forever Alone -- No men at any time.  Not even those smart, pretty ones.  (HITTING TOO CLOSE TO HOME.)
• Competitive -- Too much so.  Over the top so.  She made a freaking olive tree to win a competition.  (Yeeah....  Don't go there with me.  I like to keep that side of me in a nice little box even if I can't whip out any olive trees on you.)
• The Owls -- Enough said.

They say you only need three points of comparison to have a legitimate argument.  I think I have more than three.  Hmm....  Well.  I suppose it could be worse.  

Tech Crap

It's been a day of fixing technology on the fly.

Chewie started it by biting partially through the power adapter for my laptop.  Unlike the other electronics and cords he's destroyed, this one had current running through it.  Aww.  How sad I am!  He yelped and ran away, looking at me with those big sad eyes.  I just said, "GOOD.  Now maybe you'll leave my stuff alone."  He only got shocked, not hurt.  I have no real hope that he will really learn from this.  I've already had to throw out a sync cable for my iPhone, a non-plugged-extension cord, TWO USB connection cables for my wireless music system, and he has torn up countless non-electronics things.  He doesn't get a lot of sympathy from me.  I got the damage mended.  Black electrical tape is a wonder.

My parents called next.  I bought them a Roku for Christmas, and they'd gotten it connected as far as plugging it in and getting the RCA cables attached.  Past that, they needed me.  I went up, fought with their wireless router which had never been set up for things to connect to it since nothing they have is wireless, added their Amazon account to the Roku and reactivated a defunct Netflix account and generally got the thing up and running for them.

I tried to use their computer at first, but something was using all the memory on it.  I took a few minutes to take care of that problem, cleaned off some old programs they didn't use, purged their startup folder, and tried to help speed up their machine a little.   I couldn't find what was eating all that memory even though I looked, closed some programs through Task Manager.

I'd brought my little netbook up to take care of the Roku setup since I knew from previous experience it's easier to have a computer in front of the screen to put in codes and so forth when setting one up.  My netbook, though, has serious issues because the hard drive is almost completely full of music, etc., and the memory is insufficient.  It started acting up and then it just began to shut down.  I guess it ran its batteries out and didn't warn me.  I was so afraid it was just dead from some kind of hardware failure, but once I got it home and back on the charger, it did finally load again.

I've been wanting to upgrade my external portable hard drive for a long time since the one I have currently is almost full, and I take pictures all the time and need space to put those fairly large files.  I have a plan to make my old 500 GB external my iTunes library for my netbook and take the load off its internal HD.  Friday, the 2 TB external and some new memory for the netbook will arrive, and we'll see if I can figure out how to make all that happen.

I'm not much by way of tech support.  I am hoping that I don't have to do much more of it in the near future. I can only do the most basic of things.  With any luck, I will be able to get my netbook working like it should before I have to start travelling with it, though.  In its current state, it's a real pain.  Maybe I have enough geek in me to manage this, at least.

Just to See....

Well.  Doesn't this about sum it up?  Once again, xkcd nails it right on the head.

Do Want, Will Have

This is the new Kindle Fire.  Oh, Baby, have I been waiting for this....

I've been eyeing the tablets on the market for quite some time, asking the gurus among my group of friends what they thought about this or that one and biding my time.  Really and truly, I have other pieces of equipment that already do most of the things an iPad or its Android cousins can do as well as or better than they can.  While I've seen a million applications for them (and I don't just mean apps) for education, I haven't been able to justify the massive cost of another gadget that would be so redundant without giving me something extra in return.

And then there's this.  My dear old Kindle 2 is getting a bit ragged around the edges.  I've already super-glued the selector button, and I've managed to crack the screen somehow despite how careful I always am with it.  This new Kindle is first and foremost a touchscreen e-reader.  I am all for that.  I read more and faster with my e-reader, and all the snobs who have a problem with e-text can lump it.

Next, though, and fantastically, it offers access to all my Amazon Cloud music.  I buy all my digital music from Amazon and have for years because I hate dealing with the DMR crap from iTunes that causes problems if I want to use the songs in a PowerPoint or some such.

Because I also keep an Amazon Prime membership for the purpose of free shipping, I also have access to all the streaming videos and content that they offer.  The Fire is going to let me watch that on it, too.  This means I will be able to watch Fawlty Towers and Doctor Who on my Fire.  Freaking Shiny Score.

It is going to do other stuff, too.  It will have a web browser and handle email.  It will run Angry Birds.  There will be other native apps.  The things I've listed, though, are all the things I really care about it doing.  These are all the things I have ever wanted something to be able to do while I travel.  It is all my entertainment in one very small, convenient, independent, rechargeable place.

I'm sure there will be those who say it doesn't do enough.  For them, probably the iPad or something larger is a better answer.  For me, this "superbook" is the right fit.  I may not be able to get my hands on it until November, but I can be happy knowing it's around starting right now.  Well done, Amazon.  Well done.

Not What He Meant, Probably....

On the way to school this morning, I heard the song, "Run to You."  My mind went IMMEDIATELY and quite oddly to the bitter triangle of Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, and Anne Boleyn.  I could just see Henry singing it to Anne.  Listen to the lyrics sometime.  It's sort of uncanny.  I'm never going to be able to get that imagery out of my head again.  It's always going to be hooked to Tudor England for me now.....  Of course, I'm almost certain that this isn't what Bryan Adams had in mind when he wrote it.  English Literature strikes again.

Last Flight

On July 8, the space shuttle Atlantis will take off for its very last flight.  I wish so much that I could be there to see it go.  I came of age during the age of the shuttle program, and its victories and tragedies are little landmarks in my own personal history.  To see it ending for good now is poignant.

I remember desperately wanting to be an astronaut when I was little, seeing the first launches of the shuttles on TV like everyone else.  We were also taken on field trips from church and school to the Huntsville Space Center to see the technology that had led up to those huge white ships that did what seemed so impossible in those days, took men and women into space, let them walk in the weightlessness there, allowed them to see the world from that perfect vantage point that suddenly put everything in its right perspective.  We came home from those field trips with stickers for the Apollo missions, rubber balls shaped like moon rocks, little white plastic model shuttles, and flyers for Space Camp.

Then came the summer I visited with my great uncle and aunt in Cocoa Beach.  My great uncle, like so many others who live in that part of Florida, used to work at Kennedy, and in addition to my family's trip to the Disneys, we went to see the Space Center as well.  I don't really know which made the stronger impression on me, the costumed cartoon characters or the towering rockets.  I still have the tiny silver charm of the orbiter on my charm bracelet, still remember eating the dehydrated ice cream we inevitably bought in the gift shop, still remember sitting in one of the command capsules.

I remember, too, how excited my mother was when Christa McAuliffe was going to be a part of the 1986 Challenger mission, how excited everyone was, really. There were posters and tote bags sent out to teachers everywhere by NASA.  It seemed to be a new age of Space, a time when suddenly, it was no longer the sole province of science, when it could belong to everyone who loved it.  And then came the tragedy, the horror of the loss. I can still remember watching it on TV, seeing the bright proud bird disappear....

When the first shuttle went up after Challenger, I remember being so afraid.  I can remember that everyone waited anxiously to see if it would survive.  When it blazed its way safely into the heavens, that, too was a moment of emotion, of rejoicing.

Now, the experts say it's time for the shuttles to rest, for something new to take their place.  Only, I'm not sure what exactly that's going to be.  Space doesn't seem to be the passion it once was for us.  It seems to be more of an afterthought.  I wonder now what the next generation of children will watch wide-eyed and dream over.  Even though I understand that the technology on those big white vehicles is not state-of-the-art anymore and may be too costly to maintain, there is still just something about them that catches the imagination.  I hope that doesn't fade away with them, that the majesty of them transfers to whatever takes their place.  If nothing comes next to fill that void even if something does come to get satellites into orbit, it would be a real loss, indeed.