Just a Little Scarier Than It Used to Be

There's something wrong with the world today
I don't know what it is
There's something wrong inside...

-- Aerosmith "Livin' on the Edge"

Today's news was full of the North Korean nuclear test. Now a crazy man with delusions of divinity has a weapon capable of starting a war that may be the end of all we know. Once one single person finally pushes that button, I wonder if there will be anybody standing in the end after the preemptive strikes, the retaliatory strikes, and all the other excuses to kill masses of humanity.

Why is life so cheap? How did it get that way? How can any person look at another and be blind to the beauty of that life? We talk about acceptable losses and collateral damage. We entertain ourselves with games full of destruction and movies full of the same. What is it about us that drives this blood thirst?

The leader of North Korea is in charge of a nation with the world's largest standing army and a population that is literally starving to death. There has to be a special place in hell for that sort of thing.

I keep thinking that God should have made us with some sort of fail-safe valve, some sort of mechanism that just blows up if we reach a certain point of evil. Don't talk to me about relativity, either. Don't talk about YOUR values versus MY values. I'm not talking about driving SUVs, leaving lights on when you leave the room, or failing to recycle. I don't mean things you ought or ought not to do. I'm talking about EVIL, all capital letters. I'm talking about the kind of evil that leads to child abuse and genocide, to dictatorships and torture. When you are in charge of a group of people and you use that power to suppress, misinform, torture, and starve them, that valve ought to blow sky high.

So what now? This is my generation's nuclear threat. I don't think we'll be having drills at school where we all slide under our desks and assume the position. What will we do? What about Japan, China, and South Korea sitting so close to the impulsive insanity of a human gone rabid with power and paranoia? I have friends in those places, and now I have to worry for them and for the wonderful nations in which they live as well as for my own land.

And what of the North Koreans? What will happen to them once the political maneuvering is over and the sanctions or worse begins? My one wish is that they as a people would rise up and say, "Too much is enough," and destroy the leadership. If they did that, then maybe they could have a chance at freedom.

Just thinking about all of it is enough to make you want to find a safe, dark place and hide. I don't know how this drama is going to unfold, but I have to say it's frightening. Thanks to the machinations of a madman, the world is just a little bit scarier that it used to be, and God knows, it was scary enough without it.

And One More Thing

One more small thing... I got an antenna to pick up local stations. That means Tuesday I get to see either the enchanting and wonderful Mr. D'Onofrio or the other pair. At least it's a new episode of CI, and I'll also be able to get local news now. It's the little victories, you know.

Medical Mystery

I have to go back to the doctor tomorrow or Tuesday for a recheck. Apparently, my blood count was high. Joy. I'm feeling a lot better, though. I still get tired quite a bit, but I feel better than I've felt in weeks, and the swelling in my neck is completely gone. I'm hoping for good news when I go back.

On the more amusing side of things, some of my student readers were apparently speculating as to how I might have contracted mono, if that's what this turns out to be. I imagine they had some pretty lurid romantic scenarios. It might be funny to find out what they were, but then again...do I really want to go down that road? I think not.

Halloweening

Yesterday, the air was the perfect temperature. The sun was warm but not the brutal and burning type it has been all summer. I decided to put out my Halloween decorations and enjoy the day.

I love Halloween. Christmas is my favorite holiday, but Halloween runs a close second. I love the fun of it. I love the simple, inner-child pleasure of candy and safe thrills. I love putting up the pumpkins around my door, hanging the ghosts in my driveway, and watching parents with their kids in the store deciding whether this year's costume will be the princess or the witch.

Even in our increasingly homogenized world, most cultures have a holiday that deals with fears and concerns about death and grief for those who have departed. Japan has Obon, Mexico has Dia de los Muertos, and we have Halloween. That part of the holiday fascinates me, too. It is so important for us to have that connection to those who are gone, and even though we don't use Halloween in a ceremonial way anymore, the haunted houses, plastic phantoms, and carved pumpkins still represent a way of dealing with the fear of the unknown that comes with death. We learn as children, even in a very softened way, that death doesn't have to be something of which we need be afraid.

I have loved Halloween since I was a child. We used to have the best Halloween carnivals at school. I remember walking through the sixth-grade building's haunted house, riding around the playground on a hay wagon, and winning endless little bags of prizes with my friends. There was nothing fancy about it, but just being there with the costumes and the cooling weather was special.

My mom and I used to hang the same cardboard decorations on the windows every year, and so looked forward to the day when Mom would say it was time to get them out and hang them up. We also bought plastic ghosts and pumpkins and hung them on the trees lining our driveway. Coming home was a thrill as the headlights caught those silly, smiling plastic figures. It was special to me, and it still is.

For the remainders of the month, I will have the same thrill as an adult. Whenever I come home late from school, my plywood copies of those same silly smiles will be there to cheer me. The plastic pumpkins around my schoolroom door will keep me company as I work late to get papers graded and recorded. I will feed that six-year-old who still lives inside me and enjoy it.

Please, Not Mono

I have been feeling so bad lately. I have no energy, and no matter how much I sleep, I always feel tired. Two days ago, my lymph node under my ear became swollen. I've never had that happen in all my many illnesses.

Today, I felt so horrible that I went and braved the overcrowded waiting room at my doctor's walk-in clinic. Once I got to the back, all I wanted to do was lie down on the paper-covered table and sleep until somebody made me better.

When the doctor came in, he checked me over and ordered a blood test. Then he uttered the worst of words...mono. It's not sure yet, and I'm fervently hoping it's just a sinus infection, but if it is, it's a doozy. I'm not really sinusy, but I'm completely wiped out. I won't know for about two weeks whether or not it's mono for about two weeks, but keep your collective fingers crossed for me. It's going to devastate my school year if I have to be out six weeks.

October

October is finally here! It's one of my favorite months. The weather finally starts to cool down, the leaves change, and the holidays start to roll in.

I love to get my Halloween stuff out every year and hang it up or set it out. It brings back memories of childhood and never fails to bring a smile to my face.

Before I left Friday, I redid the bulletin board in the hall outside my room and hung my garland and pumpkin lights. I changed out my "This Day in History" calendar and rewrote the information on my boards in orange and black. These are little things, but I feel better knowing they're done.

I still have to hang up my ghosts outside, but that can wait awhile. I have a lot of school work I need to do today, and I also want to take a nap. Then I can enjoy the rest of my decorating.

Longing

I miss Japan so badly today that it's a physical pain. I don't know if it's the quality of the light or the fact that it's finally turning to autumn here. I don't know if it's because I'm listening to Agatsuma as I'm trying to get school work done, because I received a new catalog from the Japanese American Museum, or because I chose one of my Japanese pottery bowls from which to eat my cereal this morning.

All I know is that if I only had one wish right now, it would be to be back in Toyohashi watching all those lustrous golden ginkgo leaves showering down on the campus of Aidai. I long to be riding my bike, to be on the trains going somewhere, to be walking with my camera and seeing autumn take the countryside in slow waves of color. I crave chestnut sweets and mochi. I want to stop in a noodle shop and enjoy the flavors before a cool evening ride home.

I miss my friends there and all my wonderful, diamond-bright students. Last night while I was copying grammar exercises, my eyes fell on various knickknacks from Japan in my office: my Nohohon collection, a tiny pair of shishi-mai, my Denko-san dragon and shishi, and most wonderful of all, the card my first class of students gave me. I framed it and hung it in my office to help me remember when I have really bad days that somebody somewhere thinks I'm a good teacher.

I want to be walking down the winding pottery path in Tokoname with my camera in hand. I want to be sitting on my ridiculously small green sofa and hearing the absurdly musical chime of the factory across the street. I want grocery store sushi and an egg salad, tuna salad, potato salad sandwich trio from a C-store. I want to go indulge at the 100 yen store.

Here, there is no sumo, no maneki neko, no matcha, and today I feel the loss like a lash across the shoulders. I am starting to get itchy feet and a dreaming mind again, but I have too many obligations that keep me here. I suppose I will just have to satiate the hunger in some other way, but oh how I long for my simple gaijin life in Toyohashi.

Restoring the Balance

Friday was the stupidest day I've had in a long, long time. There was an altercation with a colleague and a blazing headache. I left school early, and I took no work home with me. I deliberately left it sitting on the desk and went home. It was a mutinous, rebellious action, and I refuse to apologize for it.

This weekend, I read four pulp fiction novels, made several pots of tea, lay on the couch with Dillon purring supportively in my ears, surfed eBay for vintage Vera scarves and chenille peacock bedspreads, chatted online with two dear friends who are far away, sporadically did laundry, watched The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, cooked Sunday dinner for my parents, and generally focused on feeling less like a dead teacher and more like a "real" person again.

I had reached a point where this was absolutely necessary. I am now behind in several things, but I can't bring myself to worry about it. It will all get done. I may have to stick a cot in the back of the classroom next week, but at least I will start the week rested and refreshed. I know the ridiculous crap with the coworker will probably flare back up at least once next week, and at some point, I will tell that story here, but I think I will be able to deal with it.

Another Sisyphus Day

This week has been crazy. There have been fire drills, personal and professional dramas, preparation for unit tests, fights in the halls, screaming crazies elsewhere, departmental work days, and parent conferences, and I'm worn out with it.

Today has been especially long. A perfectly capable student is trying desperately to get out of my class because it's "too hard." I can't tell you how tired one gets of hearing that, of hearing how hard my class is, how much work I assign, how strict I am. I feel like just saying, "Well heck then, let's all twiddle our thumbs and do nothing. Let's all be the same unimproved, unenlightened people we were when we came in. Let's keep our world view and comprehension from expanding one iota."

It's not that student alone or even mostly that's triggered this. There are other issues going on there, and I know AP is hard. It's supposed to be. I do everyone a disservice if it's not. I don't have a problem there. As the lady who ran our AP seminar this summer tells her students, "Hate me now; love me in May."

It's more that I try so hard to do this. I try so hard to make every single day something that will bring some new facet to the jewel of life. I want my students to understand the power and the humanity, the shared lives and the eon-spanning emotion, we approach every time we open our textbooks. So often, I watch them shut down as the covers open. So often, they refuse, by conditioning, I suppose, to give what we're doing a chance. These things have lasted for a reason. They are, at their bedrock, built on experience we all have.

I try very hard not to teach boring stuff. Even if it's grammar, and God knows, grammar isn't my favorite part of being an English teacher with all its rules and strictures, I make every effort to cut through the crap and get to the meat of it in the most meaningful way. I know not everyone is going to love Beowulf or Pride and Prejudice or 1984, but I would hope that I am at least presenting it in a way that makes it appreciable.

I also believe I make a genuine effort to treat all my students with respect. I don't lie to them or talk down to them. I want them to do well and succeed. I want them to discover the unimaginable possibilities of themselves.

It's just a Sisyphus Day, I guess. The frazzlin' rock has rolled over me, and I feel every bruise. I need to go home, eat supper, and watch something mindless or read an old favorite. Barring the possibility of either kendo or fencing where I could release some of this frustration and sadness by destroying a hapless opponent, I think that looks like the best option.

Sunday House Call?

I was working on getting things cleaned up this morning, and my phone rang. It was a BellSouth repairman asking if he could come out today and take care of the repair issue with my kitchen phone jack. I almost fell over. I had no idea they worked on Sundays.

He came out, and in about 45 min., fixed the wiring problem. Apparently, something (probably a large reddish pit bull or her small golden sidekick) had chewed the wires leading into the house. I am so glad that it's fixed! Not having a phone right there was a terrible inconvenience.

Well, there's not really more to tell. I'm still working on school stuff and watching D'Onofrio, so life goes on. It's nice not to have exciting things to tell, sometimes.

Gnashing of Teeth

I have been on the phone with tech support for the past three hours. My wireless router has apparently gone belly up. I am ready to throw it against a wall. The very nice Mid-Asian BellSouth DSL tech guy who patiently walked me through various fixes is probably ready to throw it, too.

I hate it when things that are supposed to work, don't. I have absolutely no patience with malfunctioning inanimate objects.

I still have to call Linksys and deal with whatever sort of tech support they offer, but I don't think I can stand to do it right now. I think I'm going to get a snack and get away from the darn thing for a few minutes first.

Deluge

Today was a long day. Classes were good; we finished up Beowulf today in my regular classes. My kids were mostly engaged. Some of them even like the story. I love it, so that made me happy. I think some of the others liked it, too, but were too "cool" to admit it.

The long part came during 7th period. It's incredibly loud on our hall during seventh period. The noise is disturbing because it always sounds like a fight is about to break out. It makes me very nervous, and I want to either call security or just go scream, "SHUT UP!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SHUT UP!!!" The situation is increasingly uncomfortable for me.

From 7th period forward, my room was full of students. I have so many who come in to do work, makeup work, or get help. It's kind of nice. I like that the students are concerned enough to come in. It's such a change from last year and tenth graders.

I tutored after school, and I didn't get a chance to get a snack. That made my blood sugar drop, and when I finally left school at 4:20, I was sick. Fortunately, Dad called, and we ate dinner. It was nice to sit and talk. Now, I'm watching a little TV (yes, the delightful Mr. D'Onofrio is on), and later on, I have big, big plans that involve a long hot shower, my bed, and a book I don't have to read for school. Maybe if I sleep enough tonight, I'll be able to get some energy for the big pep rally tomorrow.

Fulbright?

Today I got a packet of information from one of the mysterious office fairies about Fulbright's Teacher Exchange program. As soon as I read the flyer, I felt my toes curl and that electric zing that the thought of travel, especially long-term travel, brings to me. To spend a year teaching and living in another country AND to be on paid leave from my job here is just too good to be true.

I ran down the list of countries and places, and there were so many places on the list that I want to go. The one that looks most attractive is the six month stint in the UK. I would have a chance to explore WITHOUT a ravening horde of teenagers trailing me. It would be paradise.

There are still lots of questions about the program, and I have to give it some serious thought before I even decide that I'll apply. Once I apply, I know my chances aren't very good to be selected out of the thousands of applicants. I might still decide to throw my hat in the ring. My feet have been itchy lately, and something like this might be a cure for it.

Victory!

Finally, finally, finally, the huge pile of papers has been graded. It took two days, and I think I used up two whole pens, but by George, it's done! Now, I can do the happy dance. This usually involves lots of hollering and scooping up various cats to spin around with. They, of course, find this less than soothing.

I have one teensy-tiny little set of essays from my Juniors left to grade, and I think I can get them done tomorrow during my off period if everybody will let me alone so I can work.

I'm rewarding myself by watching the late episodes of the Bravo marathon since I've been so good about forcing myself to grade all weekend. I have to go to bed soon, but I feel as if a huge rock has been removed from my back. It's a good feeling for as long as it lasts.

Genetics

I went up to have dinner with Mom and Dad tonight, and Mom was in a state of near-exhaustion. She's obligated to do this, that, and the other and then has school stuff on top of it. She, like me, works 14 hour days at school, and still comes home and grades into the night.

I guess I come by it honestly. I suppose I should have known this was the way it was going to be. After all, I've spent my entire life watching her do this. I never knew there was any other way to be a teacher.

There are other ways, though. I know lots of teachers who roll out with or just after the buses. My question is how? Are they doing it all at home? I wish I were that disciplined. Are they just not doing it at all? If that's the case, how do they stay employed or look at themselves in the mirror?

I think I'm just a poor time manager. There's got to be an easier way to get these things done with the same quality. Maybe I'm just genetically cursed to do it the hard way.

STRESS

In the space of two days....

1) my phone in the kitchen died, a repair was scheduled, and the repairman never came because he was calling the defunct phone instead of my cell -- I'm still waiting to hear back from them

2) the class I'm taking for my silly second MA loaded the crap on me with tests and projects out the wazoo

3) the garbage I set out today didn't get picked up because apparently Monday wasn't really a no-garbage holiday

4) my dog chewed up another package, this time containing something I need for school tomorrow and Monday

5) a student told one of my admins that she would like to change classes because she needs a "different teaching style" and now I have to go through a parent conference about it

6) my laundry is overflowing, my house needs to be declared a haz-mat zone, and my yard is stemming out with bahaia

7) Yelldo and Dillon need to go to the vets

By all that is holy, please let tomorrow not be as full of crazy mess as the past two days have been.....

Seed or Husk

Sitting draped in my doctor's office today, I had quite a bit of time to reflect on things. When one is surrounded by the accoutrement of childbearing, it's hard not to think about having babies. For me, it's hard not to worry about whether I ever will have them or not.

Nobody enjoys these visits, I guess. There are few positions as vulnerable; few relationships require the level of trust the relationship between a woman and the doctor who helps her maintain the apparatus of the creation of life does.

When I go, though, there's always another layer underneath the general discomfort: the fear that one day the doctor will come back in and tell me that my body has finally betrayed me to the final extremity and that children are not possible. Every year, I procrastinate about making the appointment. Every year, I sit nervously in his office, trying not to look too closely at the photographs and other artwork of newborns and infants that cluster on the walls. Every year, I endure the exam and pray he won't tell me, with genuine apology on his kind face, that I will never know what it's like to carry life inside me and be a mother.

These visits are stressful to say the least. I'm sure after a few days have passed, I will find some self-deprecatory humor in it, but right now, I'm tired of thinking about it, tired of worrying about it.

Tennis Is Great and All, But....

I've been suffering from D'Onofrio withdrawal. USA has been showing the US Open non-stop for a week now, and I have been missing my Law and Order episodes. Tonight, though, is Bravo's mini marathon, and I am soaking up the lovely man.

I really hate it when a network pre-empts its regular scheduling for extended periods. I guess if I were a sports fan, I'd love it, but since tennis isn't my particular obsession, I resent having to miss one of the very, very few shows I do watch because of it. It's just another facet of my Type-A coming out, probably.

Oh well, I'm off to the kitchen for a really late supper, and since there's no school tomorrow (thank GOD), I'm going to spend the night watching the witty Mr. D'Onofrio and reading until dawn.

The Evil Wench at the C-Store

Look out...I'm getting up on the soapbox, and I'm steaming....

Today, I went into a C-store to get my favorite nectar of the gods, Diet Mountain Dew. All the bottles in the cold case had spatters of something sticky and brown on them. I'm assuming it was probably exploded Pepsi or a similar substance. If not, I really, really don't want to know.

I pulled one and took it to the register. While the gum smacking under-dressed gutter socialite behind the counter was ringing up my drink, I asked her if she perhaps had a wet wipe or a damp paper towel I could use to clean the bottle. She waved her hand in a vague fashion toward their deli, said something largely unintelligible around the wad of gum, and then TURNED HER BACK ON ME.

She didn't turn to answer a question or get something for another customer. She just turned around and rested her vast backside against the very counter upon which my purchase was sitting. I felt my blood pressure soaring. She hadn't helped me get something to clean up THEIR mess, she hadn't even offered to put the things I'd picked up in a bag, and she turned her back to me in dismissal while I was still trying to understand what the heck she was trying to say. People have died for less than that.

If you hate your job that much, go to the house. Please. Your life may be a living nightmare, but that's no reason to take it out on every innocent bystander. Truly, I understand that working at a gas station on a Saturday afternoon probably doesn't rank up there as one of the top ten jobs, but if it's paying your car note and your light bill, don't give me crap when all I am trying to do is buy a soda.

I was very proud of myself. I did not reach across the counter and slap her silly. I thought about it. It was fairly satisfying just thinking about it, in fact. Instead, I found a napkin, got the bottle clean, and left. I managed not to let her rudeness force me into rudeness of my own, so maybe I won a small battle with myself if nothing else.

Greetings and Salutations

It was inevitable, I suppose. It's come to my attention that my darling, darling students have found my blog. This explains the huge surge of traffic the site has had from the area around Podunk. I guess it's just the price I pay for having briefly flirted with MySpace.

Welcome. Enjoy. I told you I write for fun. I never said I write WELL for fun....

Open House

Last night was our annual Open House. That of course means that I did not actually leave school until 8:30 last night. I was at school for about 14 hours.

The meeting went well. I got to see a lot of parents and just touch base with them. It never ceases to please me when parents come. I wish all my kids' parents would come to see me. It would solve so many problems.

Well, today, I'm wiped out. I came home as soon as I could, and I have plans to go to bed before 9. I want to stay up and see the enticing Mr. D'Onofrio, but my eyelids have been slamming shut all day and tomorrow is another long, long day since we have the AP Orientation tomorrow night at 7. At least I'm getting some school work done in the intervals, I suppose....

Teacher Lady and Me

I'm slowly being devoured. The teacher is taking me over. I am at school until 5:00 or 5:30 every day, and everything I do seems to revolve around teaching. I'm always preparing to teach, teaching, or recovering from teaching.

I am uncomfortable with this, but I don't know how to stop it. I don't know if I even can stop it. I like to be passionate about my teaching, but there has to be something else. I am risking burn out if there's nothing else.

I wish I had something that could help me refill and refresh, something artish. I would love to take a pottery class, or one in photography, something that would force me to leave school totally behind. I always say I'm going to do something here at home, but what really happens is that I crash on the couch and do nothing.

It's a question of balance, I guess, and I've yet to find mine. I hope I find it before the Teacher Lady subsumes all else.

How to Eat Literature Like a Pit Bull

I had ordered a copy of How to Read Literature Like a Professor from amazon.com the other day. I came home yesterday evening to find it and the cd that was also a part of the order in pieces strewn across my yard. The cover had been ripped off neatly, and the corners had been chewed away. The case of the cd was chewed right down to the edge of the disc, but miraculously, no dog teeth had penetrated it.

Needless to say, I wasn't happy. I had been looking forward to reading the book since this summer's AP conference. Several people there really recommended it as a resource for students, and I finally had enough money in my budget to get it.

Missy, who usually mugs me as soon as I get home, was very tentative. I just unloaded my school stuff and told her to stay away from me. I was so mad.

When I came in, I looked out the screen door and saw her standing, wilted and droopy, on the porch. I came back to my senses. Who gives a crap about a book? She loves me faithfully every single day. Every day, no matter how bad my day has been, she comes to the car and tries to get all sixty pounds of herself into my lap for a hug. That kind of unconditional love is worth all the books and cds in the world.

I went out, sat in the chair on my porch, and gathered her into my lap. She wrapped her paws around me in that way she has and just about shook herself apart with happy wiggles. It's amazing how trivial are the things we get mad at the ones we love, be it dog or human, for sometimes, isn't it?

Random and Sleepy

I haven't been posting much lately for several reasons. First, I've been trying to go through and tag/label my older posts. I haven't gotten very far, but I really like that aspect of the new Blogger. I went through and looked at all the posts in a category the other day, and I liked the continuity of it.

Second, I am just tired, tired, tired. I have huge piles o' grading to do this weekend, and I've been at school until at least 4:30 every day this week. Home is starting to feel like a hotel again, but fortunately, next weekend is a three-day weekend, so maybe I can catch up here at that time.

There are other things, specifically some stuff at school, but I'm really too tired to go into it with any sort of clarity. Tomorrow, I'm supposed to get to hang out with one of my friends.

It will be nice to go somewhere and be something other than a teacher. The teacher part of me is slowly eclipsing all else, and, when I stop to think about it, it really bothers me. More about that later, probably...

The New Look

As you may have noticed, I've I have changed over to the new Blogger Beta. It may all blow up at any moment, but I like being able to add labels, etc. What do you think? Comments, por favor? Or do I hear the clicking of crickets a la my juniors?

Gracias a Dios

Today was a good day in so many ways. I got a lot of stuff done at work, started a new phase of my job, and got my reimbursement checks from the Central Office and the IRS.

I have been teetering on the verge of financial ruin for awhile now, and getting those checks really made me feel better about life in general. I paid off two accounts and can make some payments on others now. I feel like a huge stone has been rolled off me.

At work, I got two sets of ID tests done and tidied up a bunch of loose ends. Tomorrow is Poetry Day (not a national holiday, but rather a weekly thing in my classes), and just knowing it's Poetry Day makes me feel happier about going to work tomorrow. We're doing a poem by Emerson in the 11th grade classes and the wonderful "Queen of the Blues" by Gwendolyn Brooks in AP. I am going to play Bessie Smith and introduce them to the real life Empress of the Blues while we're at it. It should be a good day.

I also got my 11th graders to actually talk today. This was a huge personal victory for me. I had reached the point where the cricket noises and the blank stares were about to kill me. We were going over a portion of "Self-Reliance" by Emerson, and they responded as I had always hoped they would. I had a feeling that good old Emerson would get them, but I wasn't sure until I saw them look up from the texts with that light in their eyes. I remember the first time I read "Self-Reliance". I think I underlined almost every other sentence. It still moves me. I'm a closet Transcendentalist, after all. (Can you be a closet Transcendentalist? Is that a paradox? It's late and I'm tired...cut me slack.)

The last good thing is that I am finally doing ESL again. I am our school's new ELL (English Language Learner, for those of you unfamiliar with the jargon) tutor, and I get to work with our small ELL population after school as much as I want AND get paid about $25/hour for it. How great is that? The one thing that I was missing in my current job was ESL. I have missed it so very much. Now, at least two days a week, and maybe more, I get to go back to my first love in education. It's not Japan, granted, but then again, I'm not an 18 hr. flight away anymore, either.

It was a good day, thank God. I needed one after the sorts of tiresome days I've had lately.

Full Plate

There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

I have too much going on, and it's only the third week of school. Today, I was at school until 5:30, and as I drove home, I realized that I'd been there almost twelve hours. Why can't I get anything done faster? Other teachers go home at 3:30 or so. Why am I always there so long?

Today, I finished up a packet of material for a parent-teacher night upcoming, photocopied masters to send to print shop, pulled and formatted poems for assignments on Wednesday, corresponded with parents of absent students, was an impromptu website consultant, cleaned my room, and oh yeah, taught some. Once these classes I'm taking at night really get rolling, I don't know what I'm going to do.

How far along are they with that cloning thing?

Anyway, I got home in time to see Law and Order and watch the toothsome (oh, how I love words and that big, wonderful man) Vincent D'Onofrio. I took a long shower and am currently being mugged by Dillon, so life is pretty good. Soon it will be bedtime to enable me get up tomorrow and do it all again.

Heritage

Tonight our church had a time of testimony instead of a regular service. We don't do that very often, and when we do, sometimes few people want to speak. Tonight, though, many people stood and spoke about what God has done or is doing in their lives. As I listened, I reflected on the people God has put in my life who have helped me to become the person I am. My grandmothers, my music teacher, and the women of the church whom I've known all my life have all left their marks on the woman I've become.

My grandmothers were very different women, but both of them were women who taught me many things. I learned to cook chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese, and cornbread, to make things for my house with my hands, to love my family, and to love God from them. They taught me that marriage is a life-long commitment that comes with sweet and sour, that giving up is not an option no matter what the odds are, and that it is possible to have grace and peace even in the face of a horrible illness like cancer. I have physical things that I inherited, a cookie jar, some jewelry, my house, but the most valuable things they gave me are the things I carry within me everyday.

My music teacher was almost another grandmother to me. She taught me to love music, and even though she could never get me to practice as much I should, that love has stayed with me long after she passed away. She taught me the value of doing things the right way, and even though I often play for Sunday night church wearing jeans, I still feel guilty about not wearing a dress and heels. She taught me that music and the playing of music is service to the Lord, and even though I'll never be as good a musician as she, I always feel her with me when I play.

The women of my church have taught me many different lessons. I've learned how to be a gracious hostess, even with little to share, how to take care of my neighbors in their times of need, and how to follow God, even through the darkest times. These are the women who hold our small community together. They are always ready to pitch in during the inevitable times when life falls apart.

I've been so lucky to have these women in my life. Their examples helped me learn who I need to be. I don't know that I will ever be able to be that kind of example to another person, but I hope I always live in such a way that does honor to the heritage I have received.

Wake Up

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and lets start trying
To make it a place worth living in.
-- "Land of Confusion" Genesis

What is going on with people today? Why are so many people caught up in things that don't matter at all? I am frustrated beyond belief today, and this is a soapbox message, so you might want to run away right now.

It was brought back to my attention the other day while I was talking with some educators from various places that there are teachers in various places who are just sort of drawing their checks and telling their kids to read or watch a video. There are teachers who pick favorites, pass them, and ignore or actively persecute the others.

I am an idealist. I proudly accept that title. I know that reality is often so far from my ideals as to not even be visible from the distance that separates them. I know my idealism often makes me naive.

All that being said, I cannot understand how anybody anywhere would get up as early as we have to, come to school, and do this incredibly taxing job with no passion. As far as I'm concerned, if the paycheck is your primary driving force, no matter what your job is, you need to get the heck out. Life is too short to chain yourself to the grindstone just for the money.

Why do people spend the biggest part of their lives doing things that don't fulfill them? Who told them that that's what life is for? Not every day is wine and roses, nor should it be, but if the majority of your life is spent hating what you do, then one day you will wake up, bitter and wasted, wishing you'd followed a different path.

The students under those burnt-out teachers are learning the same dangerous lesson: there's no joy to be had in the working world. That all that awaits them after high school is boredom beyond comprehension and perpetual unhappiness. The pattern of drudgery is being ingrained before they even choose a future for themselves.

Worse to me, the privilege of learning, of coming to a place and spending your time taking in new ideas and knowledge, of expanding your world's boundaries, becomes an onerous burden when those teachers simply snarl, snap, and ignore. Everyday, I get the joy of watching some of my students start to unfold like flowers opening in the sun. This has nothing to do with my skill as a teacher. I am a mediocre teacher at best, but I get to see those tiny victories because I care desperately about what I'm doing and I try to make sure they know it.

Can you imagine the force and the power for change if people would simply raise their heads from the rutted paths they've worn, and look for the jobs, the hobbies, the lives that would make them feeling humans instead of lifeless automatons? Life is too short to do what you hate every single day. It's tantamount to grabbing a sharp or hot object again and again because you make the mistake of grabbing it the first time and you don't know how to stop. We have to find a new way for our world to go forward.

The Little Things

I had a confrontation with a student today who is usually a good student. He chose today to be difficult for some reason, and it has totally soured my mood. In an effort to reclaim what had been a peaceful day prior to this, I am going to focus on some of the little things I love.

1) The little cream-colored McCoy planter on my desk -- It holds the blank 3X5 index cards I use as memo pads, notes to class, to do lists, etc. It has two tiny gnomes, one on each end, and is roughly shaped like a log with ivy twining around it. I don't know why it should make me so happy, but it does. Maybe it's the gnomes.

2) Dillon playing with her toy mouse -- Has there ever been anything as heart-cheering as a kitten with a toy? She chases it, pounces it, and brings it to me as proudly as anything weighing less than three pounds is capable of doing.

3) PEZ -- Walking in and seeing all my kitschy little dispensers lining my office walls makes me smile. I wish I could have more of them here at school, but they're small, portable, and tempting in a way that means they'd disappear pretty quickly.

4) Writing with my fountain pen -- Mom and Dad gave me a nice one for Christmas last year. It's not a Mont Blanc (I'd be too nervous to use one, anyway), but it's got good balance, a responsive nib, and I feel loved when I write with it.

5) My maneki neko collection -- Whenever I look at one of my maneki neko, or lucky cats, I can remember Japan and where I was when I bought it. I can remember Tokoname and the color of the tiles in the rain or the wall made from old sake jugs. I can remember the excitement and fun of traveling with my friends and going to pottery festivals where we always bought more than we should have and then struggled like beasts of burden to get our treasures home on the trains.

6) A new (or new-to-me) Law and Order: CI -- When I get to sit and watch the alluring Vincent D'Onofrio take apart some crime from the inside out, it makes me happy. Of course, I would probably also be happy watching Mr. D'Onofrio read from the telephone directory.... I wonder what he'd do with his elegant hands for something as silly as that?

I'll stop with six. I feel better. Now it's time to grade some essays. I have one of my night classes for the first time tonight, and I am determined to get some of this unfinished work done before it.

Bad Behavior

I am not good at meetings. Today after school we had another staff development meeting, and I just couldn't have cared less. All I wanted to do was be in my room and get some work done. Yesterday, I had to go home right after school because my jaws were hurting so much from the dentistry on Monday. Today, I needed to catch up.

I am afraid I was very rude. I had my laptop and I was using it in the notebook setting to draw and doodle on. Originally, I had it out to take notes, but there were no notes to take. I drew and drew.

I swear I was listening, but I am aware that I probably didn't appear to be. I can't seem to help this bad meeting behavior. I have to draw or do something with my hands or I just go crazy. Sometimes, I fold origami cranes. I think that it would be nicer to doodle than to fill the table with tiny paper birds.

I don't know why I hate meetings so much. I think I always resent the lost time. To me, talking about stuff usually doesn't actually result in getting anything done. Most meetings could be taken care of in 15 minutes or with a well-written memo.

Regardless, I think I need to reevaluate the way I act in those meetings. They're a part of my professional life now, and I guess I need to stop the bad behavior. I can't promise there won't be more paper birds, though.

Exhaustion

I am only writing this as a way to unwind before I crawl to my bed and pull the covers over my head. I am so tired that I physically ache. Actually, I'm not sure the ache is from tiredness. I suspect it has more to do with standing on concrete floors all day.

After a long day at school, I went to have two cavities filled. I swear, at one point, he was actually using a Dremmel on me. I jumped when he first started drilling, so stopped and hit me with two more shots in each cheek. After that, I didn't feel anything except the friction.

When that joy was over, I had to go to the local college branch to get registered for classes. That was when Marlowe's quote from his Mephistopheles came to mind, "This is hell, nor am I out of it." I wound up sitting in a hall for three hours waiting to see a counselor for 10 minutes. I HATE things like that.

While I was there, this twit on a cellphone stepped perilously close to the edge of destruction. She talked the WHOLE time I was there. Non-stop. I now know about her husband and his new four-wheeler, their dog, the diesel pickup she wants to buy from Texas for him, and all other facts about her life. She was having painfully personal conversations in a room full of people who had to try to pretend we were deaf. Why do people do that?


When there were only four or five of us left doggedly waiting on our turns, she stopped talking and started playing a game. Now I was also playing a game on my phone and had been for an hour, but I respectfully CUT MY SOUNDS OFF, including the ringer. She just let hers beep on, so every dadgummed time she moved her thumbs, it beeped and hooted. Visions of dead cellphones danced gleefully in my head. I wanted to jump up and down on it, to do a rumba across the tattered remains on the floor. I wanted to say something witty and apropos, but all I could come up with in my Novacaine deadened state was, " Hey, *&%$*, cut down the volume on that *&##(* phone." How urbane. How cutting. How eloquent.

After it was all over, I finally made it out to my aunt and uncle's house for my uncle's birthday party. It revived me to sit with my family and relax. I am still hurting, jaw and legs, but I feel a little less like somebody beat me up and left me for dead. Hopefully, a night of rest will complete the restoration. Tomorrow has GOT to be better....

Gruesome Profiteering

I just saw a commercial for a commemorative coin proof for 9/11. It has a segment that can be removed and will stand in a groove on the body of the coin to make a three-dimensional sculpture of sorts of the World Trade Center complex. The removable segment is supposedly cast from silver removed from vaults under the Trade Center wreckage.

I am appalled. What sort of person buys that kind of thing? It's horrific to take actual debris (if that part is true) from a crime against life and turn it into a gleaming collector's item. How could a person sleep at night knowing that something taken from that place of death and grief was recast, marketed, and sitting in their living room for the low, low cost of $19.95? How far will we descend with this sort of thing?

It's almost like the medieval practice of buying pieces of the true cross or the bones of the saints, but without any religious hope of salvation or healing. I know any person has the right to make and market any sort of thing, but I fervently hope sometime in the future people will stop trying to turn a quick buck off other people's tragedies.

Overwhelming Piles of Crap

My house is a wreck. There are cast-off tote bags and work bags strewn from the door to the livingroom. Clean laundry overflows the baskets in the laundry area. The dishwasher is full of dishes that need to be put away. My floors need sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping. My birdfeeders need seed and sugar water, and my grass is getting out of hand.

This is my least favorite part of the school year and the teaching life. Things pile up so quickly, and I have such a hard time taking care of more than running a load of laundry or the dishwasher during the week. I'm at school so much more than I'm at home, so home becomes a place where I dump, dine, and fall down.

I wish I knew how to reach a better balance with this. I know not all teachers live this way, so there has to be a way to do it. Of course, I also know a lot of teachers who have someone in to clean once or twice a week. That must be nice. Those people are married to men with good jobs, though, because I can't even pay all my bills with what I make, much less afford the luxury of somebody to help me with all this crap.

I guess the best I can do right now is turn Saturday into the day of decrapificaiton. Maybe if I can restore order once a week, it won't get so bad.

Prometheus and the Plane

Today, my bellringer activity concerned the myth of Prometheus. Even now that I’m teaching Seniors, they still sit wide-eyed for these tales out of the distant past. I like to think that maybe they’ll remember the stories even if they don’t remember the grammar.

I told them about how Prometheus believed in humanity’s potential, petitioned Zeus to share the gods’ gifts with them, and was denied. I told them how Prometheus, the forward thinker, stole the sacred fire from the hearth of Olympus and brought it to man. I told them how he was bound to the rock and daily suffers unspeakable agony for his actions.

Yesterday, my AP kids and I went through Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”. We looked at the timeline of the last century, and talked about what the major events were. I am not surprised, but somewhat ashamed to be a part of the society that allowed it, but my kids have very dim knowledge of those earth shattering times. World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, these are barely realities. They’re more like impositions, a mosquito buzzing in the ear, nothing that truly has to be considered but merely waved away to maintain a pleasant atmosphere.

This evening, I read my email and my CNN alerts and became aware of the full scope of the British plane plot. Men have sunk to the level that they have devised ways to kill masses of other men with sports drinks. Is this what Prometheus stole the holy fire from Olympus to create?

When I look down at my hands and I see their miraculous design, when I think of the almost unimaginable complexity of how our brains work and create reality from imagination, I am sickened right down to my soul by the uses to which we put these tools. If we can engineer ways to kill one another with household cleaners and fruit-flavored beverages, why can’t we devote the same fervor and unwavering perseverance to something worth a tinker’s damn?

It seems sometimes as if all we get better at is killing one another. When I was going through the Twentieth Century timeline with my kids, it struck me afresh how horribly fast we advanced from close combat to weapons of mass destruction. Will we ever grow beyond this, or are we doomed to selfish self-destruction? How can we fight this? How can we ever reclaim those wonderful gifts stolen from Olympus for good?

Tonight, my optimism is mostly done out. The eagles of hatred and extremism have torn the flesh, and I don’t know when Hercules is going to free the poor, shredded body of innovation, but I pray it happens soon.

SNAAAAAKE!

The thing about snakes is that how do you defend yourself against a snake if you don't have a weapon. You can't strangle it.
Morris Chestnut

I came home from dinner with Mom and Dad tonight and casually threw my bag on the parson's bench beside the door. My cat Pearl was staring fixedly at the space above the windows next to the door. I glanced up expecting to see a bug or, at the wildest, a mouse or lizard.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the head and first coils of a snake elegantly draped over the curtain rod. I could barely pull the cell from my pocket and remember how to work it. All I could think was that my cats were all staring at that same general area of the house LAST NIGHT. It was in the house all night.

I called Dad, gibbered something mostly incoherent to the tune of, "Mumble gibber SNAKE. Mumble, stutter, stutter, KITCHEN, SNAKE." Dad came with a pair of odd red metal tongs, grabbed the snake by the head, and pulled it off the curtain rod. It just kept coming. It was about four feet long. He took it outside and disposed of it.

Dad did some research when he got home, and he and Mom called to tell me that it was a kind of rat snake. It probably came in after the field mice and to escape the incredible heat. I'm sorry now that we killed it since it was a harmless rat snake, but it really, really, really shouldn't have done the whole "surprise!" thing hanging off the curtain rod. That was a bit more than I could take cheerfully.

Reckon I'll check the covers before I get in bed tonight?

Grading Zombie

Today, while my classes were writing reading tests and diagnostic essays, I graded. My eyes feel a bit blurry. I completed two sets of AP ID tests, two sets of bookcards, and half a class of Honors ID tests. Now, I just have six sets of essays left. How on earth did I get this many papers so fast? Oh well. Such is teacher life, I suppose.

Technology Problems

"Well, it was working just fine yesterday..."

We've got our projectors and we've got our laptops, and today we didn't even have basic, hardwired connection to the big server. It was just Monday all over the place. Technology came by the room twice, and the second time, I think the worst of the problems were resolved. I would NOT want to be Technology right now. They're darting all over campus looking frazzled. These wireless projectors are kind of tricky, apparently.

There's not much to tell about the day. Everything is still moving right along, but it was only day two. I did notice that the new copier is already on the fritz. I hope someone gave it whatever the machine version of last rights is before they shipped it to us. We kill copiers pretty fast. It's a real shame, too, because this one kicked butt.

Well, I was awakened at 4 a.m. with Missy barking at distant coyotes, had to take a dead mouse Pearl had caught out at 5 a.m. while I was still in my p.j.s, and had an 80 degree classroom most of the day due to a/c weirdness, so I'm pretty tired. Tomorrow will be Tuesday, and maybe it won't be as full of mechanical failures. If it doesn't, I think we're going to have to have some religious person come and lift the Machine Curse.

The Joys of T-Shirts

Short post, totally non-philosophical. Tonight's set of Bravo Law and Order: CI episodes has D'Onofrio in his usual suits, but it also has him undercover in a t-shirt and jeans and several variations thereof. Mmm, mmmm, mmm. Such a big, handsome man with such big, strong arms and shoulders....

Of course, I'm supposed to be doing schoolwork for tomorrow. However, I just can't look away. This probably means I'll be up really late. It's worth it.

V for Vendetta

"Remember, remember the fifth of November..."

I finally saw V for Vendetta tonight. I have the graphic novel, and I loved it. The movie, while different, was also really good.

I am really impressed with the performances by Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman. Weaving managed to convey emotion without his face ever being seen. His whole body emoted. It was like what I think watching ancient Greek or Japanese Noh theater might have been like. He was graceful and powerful, but always human. Even though the face of the mask was fixed, by his body language, it almost seemed that it changed. It's amazing how much of what we know about the actions and feelings of other comes to us through their bodies.

Portman was as good as I've seen her. I like her in general, but she was strong and real in this movie. In the graphic novel, Evie was portrayed as more of a victim. Portman's Evie had a little more spine, and I liked that. This role couldn't have been an easy one to play.

The movie, as did the graphic novel, makes you think. They fit into the same category as 1984 and Brave New World. The scary part of all of them is that they are not impossibilities. They are worlds that we stand inches, thoughtless inches, away from. I'm not advocating the destruction of anything, but it scares me how little we think about what our governments do. One day, if we don't start thinking, if we don't start questioning, if we don't quit believing the old axiom that the ends justify the means, we might all wake up with V's world or John Savage's or Winston Smith's.

The older I get, the more I see Orwellian shades in the corners. I see Norsefire and Big Brother hiding behind the drapes, just waiting for a crisis, an opportunity to step in and give people a choice: security for their freedom. What are we going to choose? Are we already making those choices by inches? Are the things we've given away, especially our privacy, worth what we've received, or is it all just a big lie? How far have we gone toward our own personal dystopia without the majority of the people knowing it?

I know I'll use clips from V this year when I do my unit on dystopian literature. My students last year recognized our possible future in the novels. We had a lot of discussion about it, and that's the point of those books and of V as well. Maybe if we continue to talk about it, maybe if we can recognize the symptoms of the sickness, we can prevent the disease before it becomes terminal for our liberty.

The First Day

I woke up extra early this morning and was ready to go in record time. When I went out to drive to work, the check engine light came on. So much for leaving really early. I wound up driving my mother's minivan to work, and she took my Cruiser to the dealership later in her day to see what was going on.

When I finally got to school, I was oddly calm. I didn't have any of the first-of-school butterflies that I usually have. I don't know why. I was ready to go, not because I have everything ready or all my lesson plans done, but because of some other inexplicable reason.

The kids were in uniforms this year. They looked great. They looked unified, and although I know that surface is illusory, I hope it will help to unify them in some way. While I don't believe those uniforms are a panacea, I do know that the students carried themselves differently in the halls. I can't explain it.

The day passed with unbelievable speed. I hope they all go that fast. I think my AP classes are going to be pretty lively, and my regulars are going to be a lot of fun, a handful, but a lot of fun. We're going to need to have a "Come to Jesus" moment, but once we get all of that out of the way, we should have a good year.

Once classes were over, I was exhausted. My voice is strained, and I'm physically wiped out. I'm not in "fighting shape" yet. In about a week, my throat will be used to projecting again, and walking around the room all day and standing for lecture won't be such a big deal. Today, I was really happy when lunch came so I could sit down. I don't think I sat down more than a moment between 7:40 and 11:20, and then not again until 1:20.

After school I went to the dealership to swap vehicles with Mom, and to find out what the verdict was with my car. It was another one of those ghost phenomenon, and I got to take it home with no major repairs made. I cooked the previously mentioned steak, ate half of it (it was REALLY big) and am currently vegging out in front of the TV watching Dog Whisperer. It's a nice way to wind down after the long week of hectic preparation, endless and depressing meetings, and today's manic pace.

My optimism about the year persists. I hope the promise of today is fulfilled by the remainder of the year. Monday, the new will have worn off, and we'll see how we go.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

I have a new phone, and I may regret it, but right now, I'm loving the process of customizing it, or in geekspeak, tweaking it. I changed my wireless service from Company A to Company B because I can drive to my parents' house, less than a mile away, and have service with Company B. Company A's service doesn't extend much past my driveway. It was endlessly frustrating.

Company A doesn't cover most of the state, in fact. When I was driving two hours on two-lane roads during a period where I was teaching for a local community college, I often just sort of crossed my fingers that no deer or drunken loggers would cross my path because there'd be no phone service to call for help. I feel safer now.

I jumped on the bandwagon and got a Motorola Razr. I know everybody and his brother has one, but I have craved one since I first saw the original commercial where it sliced through the words. Mine is hot pink. I'm not usually a fan of hot pink, but it seemed to fit. Last night, after hours of trying to connect and finally replacing the data cable that connects the phone to my computer, I uploaded the original theme song from Wonder Woman to be my ringtone. I've been waiting on somebody to call me just so I can have the pleasant surprise of hearing that explosion and then the dramatic choir of "Wonder Womaaann....dum de dum dum....". It's the little things that get you through the day, you know.

Since I was up so late working on getting that crucial task accomplished, I am wiped out right now. There are a couple of reasons why. First, our test scores for the whole school have come back, and they were less than we'd hoped. Much less. I don't want to say much more about that except for the fact that for three straight days, I've been trying to figure out what I could have done differently or more. It's painful and wearying. Also, I've been going full tilt all day trying to ready my self, my room, and all the various and sundry paraphernalia of education for tomorrow's onslaught of students. You can tell I have a positive outlook, no?

Actually, I think I'll be fine. Tonight, I plan to cook a big steak I foolishly splurged on, sit on my couch, and (hopefully) overdose myself on the splendid (one day, I might actually run out of adjectives with which to preface his name) Vincent D'Onofrio. Tomorrow, I'll get up, come in, and do my best. God willing, that will be enough.

When You Probably Shouldn't Write At All

Alternately titled: Why didn't I have a Mountain Dew first?

I went back over that last entry and was appalled at the simple errors I let slide. I thought I'd proofread it, but apparently, I skimmed it, spell checked it, and published it with heinous grammatical problems. Oops.

I should have had a Diet Mountain Dew this morning. I'd have been a lot more alert. Some mornings, I crave hot tea, Earl Grey or straight Japanese green. Some days, though, hot liquids and Mississippi's 100+ degree hot and muggy climate don't mix well. Those mornings, those terrible mornings where my alarm clock seems to shriek moments after I closed my eyes, I have a Mountain Dew.

I know it's not the standard choice for caffeine intake. Somehow, though, I managed to get all the way through graduate school and seven years of teaching without developing a taste for coffee. I love the smell of it, but coffee hurts me if I drink it. Besides, Mountain Dew is all fizzy and green. How can you beat that?

Well, before this becomes a hymn in praise of carbonated caffeine, I suppose I had better take myself off to bed. Tomorrow will be another long day of meetings, and if I get some rest, I might just be able to endure them without running down the halls screaming.

Whew!

I just finished leading a Technology Seminar for teacher workshop days, and I feel a great sense of relief. Who am I to be telling people how to do things on the computer?

I'm not an expert. Everything I know, I know because I played around with the shiny objects until I got them in a pattern that pleases me. I would much rather sit down with a small group of people and one-on-one show them what I've done. If they like it, I'll tell them how. If not, that's fine; maybe they know a better way.

There will be more of a post later, but I'm still humming from having to get up in front of adult colleagues (always so different), so I wanted to write this now.

Weather

As I type, the sky is yellow. Literally yellow. It's scary. I know the rhyme about red skies, etc., and I know to run like heck when they turn green (Indiana education), but yellow is new. I think I'll turn over to the Weather Channel for a minute and see if there's something I should know....

Oh wait, I forgot. The Weather Channel is now so busy running Voice of Doom programming and voyeuristic replays of the misery of others that you can't get a weather forecast from them anymore. Does anybody else find this disgusting? Why are there so many shows like It Could Happen Tomorrow? Why do people watch them?

One of the best things I gained from my time in Japan is an attitude about weather and earthquakes and so forth. In Japan, especially in the region I lived in, they are basically living on borrowed moments before a tidal wave obliterates everything that stands. Do you know what they do? They prepare the best they can AND THEY GO ON. They don't broadcast endless disaster scenarios. They don't show footage of computer generated people floating and flailing. They strengthen their buildings as best they can, they make evacuation and relief plans, they teach their children what to do, and they go on.

I don't think this preoccupation with disaster that America has developed in the last ten years is healthy. At any time of the day or night, you can find a show about the supervolcano just waiting to explode in Yellowstone, or the San Madras fault that runs down the Mississippi River, or another hurricane like Katrina. Who watches this stuff? Why? What can any single one of us do if that volcano opens up? What good does knowing how big a hole it might make if it does do for a person? Don't we have enough to worry about with the day-to-day struggle to live?

I really didn't mean to get up on this soapbox tonight, but here you have it. I guess I'll have to get my weather forecasts online from now on since the source with the word weather in its title has forsaken the real now for the worst case scenario.

Latin

This is a random thought brought on by today's "Quote of the Day", Julius Caesar's famous "I came, I saw, I conquered." I want to learn Latin.

I don't know why exactly. Maybe it's because it's one of those huge root languages. Learning it might give me insight into its children. Learning a language helps you to understand what a people values, what they think heinous, how they speak to one another in love and in hatred. It's fascinating. It would be interesting to see how much of the values of Latin crept into Spanish, Portuguese, French, and the other descendants.

Maybe it's because Latin in everything I read. Especially in the Elizabethan and Enlightenment literature, Latin is everpresent. It gets tiring to have to go to the footnotes when I can't reverse engineer from Spanish, which is most of the time. Latin at the time of those compositions was considered to be a part of a normal education. Needless to say, rural MS has different ideas on what a normal education consists of compared to those times and places.

Maybe it's just because it's another language. I love languages. I love the sound of the words and the shapes of the different symbols. I love learning the proverbs and idioms. I love the fact that language is the heart of a people distilled into the articulation of tongue and teeth, into the movement of hand commanded by heart and head.

I think we too often take for granted the miracle of being able to tell someone we love them or even read badly written technical manuals. Language, communication, is something we are born learning, and we do it with such incredible skill that we can't imagine not having it at our disposal, yet just the learning of the grammar as infants and young children is a mental task on par with the construction of the pyramids or the cathedrals of Europe. Just learning to call things by their proper names, just the infant cataloging of cat, dog, ball, momma, and daddy, much less the training of the hand to reproduce the symbols in the correct order to make a physical representation of those names should bring us to our knees in awe.

Latin isn't the only language I want to learn. I want to learn Portuguese, enhance my pitiful Japanese, and toy with Russian or German. Portuguese, especially Brazilian Portuguese fascinates me. I can hear bits of it that I recognize from Spanish, but it has a music and a lilt that are utterly charming. It's lovely, and if it were possible, more expressive than even Spanish. I suspect it's a language for poetry.

My Japanese is truly sad. I was there for two years, and it's still a struggle for me to carry on a baby conversation. I was a bad student there, and although I understand the psychological reasons for it, I am still sad that I wasted that chance because Japanese is also a language for poets, restrained, elegant, every spare syllable echoing with the strength of deep and fast-moving channeled emotion.

As for German and Russian, although they are so completely unrelated to one another, their difference from English appeals to me. Learning the alphabet for Russian will probably be a wooly bear, but I've had a love for puzzles and secret codes since childhood. German, too, is a distant cousin of English, and finding those similarities would be an exploration of culture.

I woke up with a linguistic hunger this morning. It's a shame I can't just go back to school forever and learn language after language. I don't really think my family or my current employer would be too impressed with that goal. Latin is really hard to find around here, so I don't know if I could even take courses in it locally. Maybe I'll pull out my Japanese texts and see if I can't assuage the appetite that way.

It's That Time Again

If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers. ~Edgar W. Howe

My response to this quote is simple: what about the wing of the asylum dedicated to the teachers?

After going to the dentist this morning, I went back to school today to work on preparing the room for the start of the year. The building was mostly empty, and I cranked my stereo, rolled up my sleeves, and started trying to dejunk. I had cleaned up at the end of the year and put away all my doodads to prevent summer school and maintenance from destroying them.

I threw away two trash cans full of last year's papers, got my turn-in table set up with the tablecloth, stacking paper bins, staplers, and other tools of the trade. I put about a million erasers in the student supply drawer. (It never ceases to amaze me how many of those I go through in a year.) I unshrouded my bookshelves from their protective white paper coverings and organized the big blue shelf in the back of the room.

The best part of the day was pulling out all the 10th grade materials so I can give them to whatever unlucky soul is the new 10th grade teacher. I kept finding stuff and stuff and more stuff, so I am now prepared to totally overwhelm him or her with a big old rolling cart of books and supplementals. I will try very hard not to do a jig as I push the cart down the hall, but I make no promises.

I also looked at my class rolls, at least in their pre-first-day-of-school incarnation. I know it will change at least three times before it settles. The first day of school is always insane. One of my AP classes only has 7 kids in it, but I know at least 3 names are missing that should be in there. I don't know if they decided to run away or if scheduling is just messed up.

The projectors are up, but I couldn't connect to mine with my laptop. I did manage to get it turned on, but I suspect the projector needs the wireless card I saw in its case. Theoretically, I could have gone down the hall and swiped one of the wiring crew's big ladders, but ladders and I don't really do well (think cat up a tree -- up is fine, down is very bad) and since there was no one there to hold it, I decided I'd let Technology get to it. However, if they don't have that done by Wednesday, I will be caught hanging from the ceiling trying to get it to work. I am a bit impatient when I have a new toy and I can't play with it. :)

I have a quiet optimism about this year that may very well get smashed flat on Friday. I don't know why I should feel this way when I'm going into two new preps, but maybe it's just the unusual feeling of starting my third year somewhere. I was thinking about it, and this is the first time ever that I've spent three years anywhere. All my other jobs have been two year deals, either contractually or by coincidence. It's nice to feel like I have a place where I belong. Maybe that will be enough to help me face the inevitable cynicism and apathy that will be rolling in on big yellow buses the morning of the 4th.

My Personal Theory on Interesting Men

Here it is. Get ready. You'll want to write this down. All set? Pencils poised?

All men who I find interesting will be one of two things: about to move far, far away or totally fictional.

Proof One: Right after I moved home, friends of mine introduced me to a very handsome, intelligent, wonderful guy from Cuba. We clicked, gently flirted (which almost never happens to me), and hung out with our group of mutual friends. He was the first guy I'd been interested in since Proof Five below, and I was determined not to move too fast like I did with P5. Suddenly, he had to move to take a job near some of his family in Florida. I will never forget the night he told me that. I was torn between crying and jumping up and down like a two-year old at the cruelty of fate.

Proof Two: Last summer, I met an interesting guy whilst I was schlepping twenty teenagers around the U.K. and Ireland. He was cute, sweet, very smart, and a lot of fun to talk to. Needless to say, the trip ended, and that was that. He's in grad school somewhere in New York. Sigh.

Proof Three: While I was in Japan, I went on a trip to Thailand to work with Thai English teachers in rural areas. On that trip, I met a great guy from Ireland. Unfortunately, he was headed back to Tokyo and then back to Ireland. Crap.

Proof Four: The only interesting guy I've even seen in the last twelve months is fictional. If you've read any of my previous postings, then you know I'm smitten with Det. Goren on Law and Order: CI. I know people like him don't exist outside of screen plays, but...sigh...he's just so darn cute and scruffy and tall and smart....

Proof Five: The odd combination of moving and fiction....I met a guy at IU right before I left there and fell HARD for him. We started going out and things were intense. Then, of course, I moved away to Podunk and later to Japan. This is a variation on the theme. The fictional part comes in quite some time later when I found out what a grade-A jackass he was. Things between us ended. (This, ladies and gentlemen, is known as litotes, the gentle art of understatement.) I don't know if he's alive or dead, but can very proudly say that I'm no longer actively rooting for the latter possibility.

I've got to wonder at the psychology of this. Am I only attracted to people who I know there's no chance of my having permanently? I don't really think that's true, especially since I didn't know Proof One was moving when we met. I can see that Proof Two might have been a conscious thing, but I really tried hard not to pursue that interest since I knew it was a three-week thing after which I'd probably never see the guy again.

As for Proof Four, I suppose one can say that's the level to which I have sunk: the fictional. None of the men I know right now interest me at all. I find them all weak, childish, wallowing and reveling in their own ignorance, rednecky, slightly creepy, or some combination of these qualities. Mostly, I just want to run away from them, or barring a valid means of escape, smack them upside the head.

Who knows? Maybe our school will have hired a smart, interesting math teacher or something. Maybe the handsome gentleman from Cuba will come back to visit, or more delightfully, to stay. Maybe the planets will all align and I'll meet somebody from the same weird world in which I dwell. It would be nice to prove this theory wrong for a change.

Country Girl

There's something very satisfying about barreling down dirt roads in a giant four-wheel-drive pickup truck. I was helping my father move some farm equipment from point A to point B this afternoon, and I got to drive his farm truck.

I call the farm truck Sherman because it's about like driving a Sherman tank. You don't steer it as much as sail it within the banks of the road ditches. It's old, beat-up, and has a million stories linked to each dent. One of them was created by our old bull getting mad and rushing the driver's side door. It put a huge dent in the door. I don't remember the bull being even mildly unsettled.

Sherman also has a HUGE engine built for pulling cattle trailers and so forth. When it's in 4WD and you press the accelerator, it almost stands up on its rear tires. Driving it gives you an attitude. Suddenly, all bets are off and the urge to roll over those who offend becomes strong. After all, there is very little that can hurt Sherman. It's the only vehicle I feel safe going up to our farm in. My little Cruiser just isn't made for the types of rutted trails that Sherman can handle.

While Dad was performing the magic rituals that are required to get our oldest tractor to crank, I walked over to the pear tree that stands at the edge of the burned-down house where my mother grew up. It's ancient and was damaged by the fire, but it still bears hard, round pears every year. I love those pears. I don't know their specific type. They're not anything fancy like D'Anjou, but they are our pears from a tree that my grandmother and grandfather, that my mother and uncle ate from. The tree needs care and fertilization, and next year I'm going to go up and see if I can't get it to bear better. I ate two of the tiny apple-like pears while I waited. They were firm and juicy.

I also checked out the fig tree that was nearby. I haven't had fresh figs in years and years, but the tree was bearing. I picked them into the tail of my shirt to take back to the truck and ate a few standing there.

It was a moment of perfection. The constant sound of wind, the clouds skidding across the horizon, and the sweet rich taste of the figs all combined. Moments like this are the reason I moved back here. Moments like this are "home" for me. I suppose that no matter how much my mind lusts after the art and activity of larger places, in my deepest heart, I am just a country girl.

Dillon Photo

 


Just a quick photo of Dillon. The glowing eyes in the background on top of the piano belong to Yoda. 

Dillon Sees the Vet

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through. ~Jules Verne

I took Dillon to our vet today to get her healthcare started. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. She is just the sweetest cat I've ever seen. Even the vet commented on her gentle patience as they took blood, prodded, and probed her. She didn't even meow. She just looked up at me with those huge golden eyes and, whenever they let her go, climbed up my shirt to be held.

The vet took her to the back to take the blood sample for viral screening, etc., and all the doctors were called in to look at her shoulder problems. They said her shoulder injury could have happened anytime and that there's really no need to try to do anything for it. She goes everywhere she wants to go, including straight up things (mostly me), and she's not in any pain, so there's nothing that needs to be done. That was a relief. She's so tiny that I would be afraid of them trying to do surgery on her.

She's about eight weeks old right now, and in a couple of days, I'll know more about her bloodwork and general health. She'll go back for her first shots once the bloodtest comes back, and then we'll be well on our way.

When we got back from the vet, she and I curled up on the couch and the next thing I knew, we were both asleep. It was one of life's simple pleasures, and I think we both needed it.

Tomato Funny

In light of the previous post, I thought I'd just add this. Got to love the 1940s....

In Praise of Tomatoes

The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can't eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as 'progress', doesn't spread.
Andy Rooney

Is there any single thing in this world better than the taste of a homegrown summer tomato? The most perfect ones are slightly sweet at first taste and then follow with a wash of wonderful acidity. You can't find them in the grocery store; no hydroponic outfit can produce them. They only come from somebody's back yard, from some patch of pasture reclaimed, tilled, fertilized with cow manure, and carefully defended from marauding white tails.

One of my dad's friends brought him a sack of tomatoes from his garden. For those of you who have never been privileged enough to live out here in the sticks, you may be unfamiliar with this ritual. Mississippi gardeners frequently have "eyes that overload their stomachs", and instead of planting two or three tomato plants or a couple of cucumber vines, they suddenly have a half acre of producing plants and far more produce than any family of ten could consume.

A famous example of this from my own family involves my grandfather's predilection for watermelons. Every summer, even after the raccoons and deer took their share, we were always hauling melons to friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. We did draw the line at leaving them on doorsteps like abandoned infants, but just barely.

Sometimes people sort of wander around their communities with the abundance of their gardens in the backs of their cars and veggie swaps occur. A husband leaves for work with sacks of collards and comes home with a sack of tomatoes or okra he was pressed to take in exchange. The riches are divvied up among immediate family members and extended families and everyone enjoys.

There's a sort of desperation for the biggest gardeners. They frantically fling bags of vegetables and fruit at any passersby as their gardens quietly produce more and more. It can get to be a little sci-fi after awhile.

The excess bounty often appears in the parking lots of Wal-Mart in the back of people's pickup trucks. You can buy Smith County Watermelons (no, I'm not sure why their being Smith County Watermelons makes them more attractive), peaches, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes from people sitting in folding lawn chairs for a pittance. The better the produce year, the more weekend merchants appear until it's almost like an impromptu farmers' market outside and shoppers sneer in contempt as they pass the pale, mealy tomato poseurs and tiny watermelons inside.

The sack of tomatoes my father's coworker sent were the very best type: rich, red, firm, juicy, acidic, and small enough to be eaten by one person. These summer tomatoes never need the assistance of any form of dressing. In fact, salad dressing would be an insult to the process of soil, sun, and hand labor that produced them. They are slicers, begging to be quartered, salted lightly, and devoured. One can eat them like apples while luscious juices drip from the chin. It becomes a hedonistic celebration that involves finger licking and a garden hose to clean up afterwards.

Summer is also the only time you can get green tomatoes. There have been times when I was abroad in the summer that just the thought of green tomatoes, sliced and fried, has made me discontent with all other dishes available. In Japan, I had my own little tomato plant out on my tiny balcony just so I could have fried green tomatoes.

These perfect summer tomatoes don't last long. Perhaps the very ephemerality of them is part of the flavor. Soon, the bearing season will be over, the plants will be tilled under to enhance the soil, and all of us will have to settle for whatever poor cousins might appear in the produce department. Until then, I'll enjoy every messy, delectable bite.

The Cell (or, The Celluloid Albatross)

USA had this movie on this afternoon, and I watched it because I wanted to see D'Onofrio's performance. I really, really wish I hadn't watched it.

I started not to. Long ago, I decided it was a "Film I Don't Want to See." Friends of mine went to see it during its theatrical release, and I distinctly remember them saying how disturbing they'd found the film at the time. I try to avoid stuff like that. I don't like movies that linger because of blood or evil. There's a surfeit of evil everyday in the news and in the things people to do one another in the real world.

I decided that I would only watch enough of it to see what it might be like and to see why my friends had warned me about it. I'd only peek in to satisfy my curiosity. That, of course, is the classic mistake. The next thing I knew, the end credits were rolling and I knew I was stuck with it, a celluloid albatross around my neck.

Of course, I didn't see the whole film. It was on USA in the middle of the afternoon, so chances are I saw less than 2/3 the original film. There were really obvious omissions and cuts, including the ever-popular gloss over of profanity. I think, but have no way to know for sure, that they cut out most of the most profoundly disturbing parts. What was left was sort of a hodge-podge, but it was enough to do it for me.

D'Onofrio was, as always, very good. The more I see of him in things, the more of him I want to see. I think he'd be a very interesting person to talk to. I want to ask him how he does what he does.

That's probably one of those questions that can't be answered, like when people ask me how I write about this or that. I don't know how I do it. It's an automatic response, like fish in the water.

I wonder if it's that way for him. I wonder if that ability to slip into another person is comfortable. I wonder how he can bear characters like Stargher, or if they stay with him at all. I would hope that they don't. After awhile, I think it would get very crowded inside if they do.

I don't see how that particular role could have been played better. The character evoked an odd mixture of loathing and sympathy. Even though the character was a serial killer, a monster, it was also possible to see in him the damaged child. Maybe that was part of what makes it linger. If there hadn't been something almost pitiful and so desperately in need of protection under the surface of the demon, I think I could have turned my back on the whole thing and not thought about it again.

In any case, I can say that I've seen it in some form now. I still wish I'd left well enough alone. Oh well, so I'll probably have a few bad dreams. I might have done anyway, to be honest. This is a small price to pay when compared to all the other less scary interesting places my curiosity has led me. This time, the thing I had to know about was unsettling. Next time, it might be something shiny and wonderful. As long as that option is open, I know I'll keep following that itching need to know.

Truth

"The search for truth...it's not for the faint of heart." -- Det. Robert Goren, Law and Order: CI

Truth is a major preoccupation of mine. I want to know what's at the heart of everything. I always try to figure out what makes people do the things they do. Maybe that's why shows like CI appeal to me so much.

The search for truth is probably what drives most writers. Some of us are looking for truth in the outside world. Some of us are obsessed with digging the truth from the deep wells and hidden spaces inside ourselves. I think both are equally dangerous. Sometimes the truths are things with which I find it hard to live once they've been uncovered. I find that people weren't who I thought they were. I find that I have spaces of darkness inside.

Those truths take on a life of their own. They shuffle their feet and leave fingerprints on the windows. They perch on the bookshelves and trail dirt on the clean floors. There's a lingering smell of them like the rancid odor of spoiled milk that floats in at odd moments once these uncomfortable truths have been unearthed. They slide across happy moments like a sudden stormcloud across the sun when you're not expecting them.

There's a line in Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" that says, "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' —that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." I have always believed it to be true, at least in the aspect that truth is beautiful, and that nothing can really be beautiful that is artificial. However, lately, a question has been warring with this old axiom. How can I reconcile the shambling ugliness of some of the truths that emerge with Keats's declaration of beauty?

The only way I can resolve the paradox is that not all beauty is comforting. The glaciers of the frozen north are beautiful, majestic, pure, but I don't think anyone could ever label them as safe or tame. Arenal, in full eruption and framed against the velvet of black sky, stirs the soul with its powerful beauty, yet every time the earth moves with its rumbling, a primal shiver runs through the body and there's no doubt that there's no safety in its presence.

These dark truths come to me from the world in general sometimes, but more often, and more persistently, they come from my analysis of my own character. As I have often said, I'm really not a very nice person when you get right down to it. As long as I know that, as long as I am honest with myself right down to the bone, right down to the marrow, I can use that to keep myself in line. I can use that uncomfortable truth to force myself to do better, its sharp edges a blade to remove everything that I know should not stay. If I can use them to make myself stronger or better, then there is a beauty in that. If they can become tools for change or for increasing my understanding of the world around me, then there is a beauty in that, too.

It's a harder beauty. It's not the beauty of a summer meadow or a butterfly lighting on a dewy rose. It's the turbulent beauty of the sea before the storm, the austere beauty of shifting desert sand. While this kind of truth may bring me pain when it is revealed, if it can make me stronger, then it is worthy of pursuit.

Preaching to the Choir

Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing. ~John F. Kennedy

Every education conference I go to always contains some form of the following condescending "motivational" topic: loving our students. People who don't know my students, people who haven't been in a classroom in the last ten years if EVER wish to tell me what it is that I'm doing wrong and how to become the super teacher for whom kids will jump of bridges if asked. They all have an activity or a game or a magic classroom procedure that will spark love in my heart and the hearts of my students.

We are told that if we just "love" our students enough, they will perform past every standard and expectation. If we were just "loving" them enough, they'd all make Advanced scores on state testing. If we were "loving" them as we should, they'd all be on honor roll and choirs of angels and winged horses would float up and down our halls. Peace on Earth would reign, lions and lambs would lie down together, world hunger would end, and the planets would align in perfect harmony.

There is such a superiority in these speeches. The double-edge of them is that, apparently, since none of these great Nirvanas have been reached, we as teachers are not doing our jobs. We as teachers have failed our towns, America, and the universe in perpetuity through our lack of "love."

These ivory-tower experts have good intentions, I think, but so few of them seem to have any idea of "love" that is going to be helpful for a student. If a student has always failed, and you continue to pat that student on the head like a wounded dog and say, "Baby, that's just the best you can do. You just go right ahead and don't even try. We'll pass you anyway," you are not loving that student. You are not trying to correct what's going on with that student to allow success to come. Instead, all you're doing is hammering down the notion the student has that he or she will never amount to anything and is doomed for failure.

We as teachers have to be worried about more than just whether or not the student "feels happy" all the time in school. There are times in life when you feel great frustration as you struggle to overcome an obstacle. That temporary challenge leads to the satisfaction of mastery, and I think it's a lot more valuable than any saccharine, manufactured, patently fake, frou-frou praises. Our purpose, the way we truly love our students, is to help them hold the course through the frustration, through the first steps, until they can begin to appreciate that the struggle leads to lasting gains.

Today, over and over, we were told to be our students' friend. There's a line here and it's a tricky one to walk. I believe in building relationships with students, but they are not my friends. I love my students and I want the best for them, but I am not going to text message them for kicks. I don't want them to think of me as "one of the gang." I am not. That is one of the prices paid to do this job. A teacher has to be other and should be other. A teacher has to correct and sometimes grab by the collar and shake when he or she sees a student headed down a path leading to pain and destruction, and these are things that friends can't really do.

Teenagers and younger children know when something is a lie. They have come to expect sugary platitudes delivered in a sing-song voice from their teachers. They know it's not genuine. They tune it out and lose all the knowledge about life and our subject matter that we have to pass on. As teachers, we have to move away from that. We owe it to them.

Love our students? Alright, but love them with real love, love that holds them to high standards and helps them get what they need to reach them, not love that only looks glossy on the outside but has a secret center of silent prejudice and apathy inside. The type of love I am talking about does involve holding the hand when life, as it does for teens and adults alike, goes to pieces. However, this love also involves kicking the butt when needed. This is the love that you never hear about in lectures and conferences. My guess is that none of those exalted experts want to get down here in the trenches with us and dirty their hands on the realities of what true love for our students involves.

The Love of a Kitten

It is impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more kittens. ~Cynthia E. Varnado

A catless writer is almost inconceivable. It's a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys. ~Barbara Holland

Dillon is a she. I figured that out about a week ago. She's filling out nicely and developing her cat attitude. Yoda doesn't know what to do, and Pearl is very, very hacked off. She growls low in her throat and runs away from Dillon. If you could see the difference in size, you'd understand why I think it's so funny. Pearl is approximately 3 times larger than Dillon. Yoda watches from a distance, and I swear I think she's laughing. I suppose this is a cat revenge for her after Pearl invaded her space when she came in.

Since Dillon is still tiny, I keep her in the guestroom whenever I'm not here. She has started galloping out the door whenever I open it. She enjoys the space in the rest of the house.

She's become a great comfort to me. She's the only cat in the house who seeks me out for affection. I am just a glorified butler and maid for the other two. Tiny as she is, she climbs up on the couch to be petted and to purr.

Today, I needed it a lot. I am tired. Today was my third straight big driving day. I have two more to go, and then I get a bit of a break. The conference I'm in right now isn't as far away; it's only about 85 miles. That's become chicken feed.

It was so nice to come home at the end of the day, microwave a potato, curl up on the couch with Dillon and watch Law and Order: CI. Dillon and D'Onofrio. It's pretty good living.

Live from Stark Vegas

Coming back to the college town where I did my undergraduate was surreal. I left Podunk about the same time I used to when I went home for the weekends when I was in school. Just making the trip, seeing the turns, made me feel a duality of time. I was myself, but I was also that girl who used to go to school here in Starkville, and holding both of those people within me was not altogether comfortable or nostalgic.

Starkville and MSU were good to me. I made friends here I still treasure. There are parts of campus that I saw as I drove through today that triggered memories both rich and trivial.

That being said, I went through some very intense and not always pleasant things here. I guess it would have been the same anywhere with any college student. College, by definition, is a time of change and transformation. It's where the last of our childhood is shed, and sometimes that shedding isn't strictly voluntary.

Driving past the place where the dorm I stayed my sophomore year used to be (used to be because they dynamited it and built something else), I remembered standing downstairs folding laundry when my friend came down to tell me my grandfather was dead. Passing the on-campus apartments, I remember late nights trying to finish an insane course load my senior year and almost going next door with a cast iron skillet to beat my loud-music-playing neighbors to death. Those apartments also triggered memories of the night I found out my grandmother had pancreatic cancer and my friend came over and let me cry on him until I could pull it all together again.

There are lighter things. The Tin Gym still stands where two of my friends and I used to go to an "abs" class to work on our waistlines and ogle the instructor (mmmm....Greg....). The Drill Field where we flew kites in the spring still shines like a green jewel, if you can figure out a way to get to it through the endless and ubiquitous orange construction mesh.

The carillion and the Chapel of Memories still sit at the center of campus, playing songs on the hour. It holds the piano that other angst-filled night denizens and I used to politely, but with no contact or conversation, share. One of us would arrive and play. For that time, the chapel belonged to that person. The others slipped in and out through hidden side doors like shadows, always making sure the door made no noise to distract the one who was purging whatever had driven them from their dorms long after the prudent had gone to bed.

Tomorrow, I'll spend my day in the new, space-age-looking Hunter Henry Center working on rating and refining items for state testing. I hope I'll have some more time to walk around campus some to see if I can revive or lay to rest some of the memories that have arisen.

Poetry Site

Sorry, everyone, no platitudes, diatribes, allegories, or fantastic voyages tonight. At least not from me. I did want to share this website, though, for those of you who might not know about it. If you're interested in poetry, it's a good place to go poke around. My favorite part is being able to hear the poet read his or her own work.

I am in a productive phase myself right now, so the work of others is feeding me in that, too. When I was in the workshop, I was having a crappy day and a poem from Emily swooped in like words from God. Maybe they were. Maybe he was using her words to slap me "upside the head." Anyway, I'm trying to scrape up a couple of entries for a regional competition coming up, and I may try to shape up a few essays for entry or something.

I hope you enjoy the site. It's a source of great joy to me. With that, to bed. Tomorrow, I'll be writing to you from the land of Stark Vegas....