The First Tomato

I picked the first ripe tomato from my one little tomato plant yesterday. It needs probably one more day to finish ripening completely, so I'll probably cut it tomorrow. I am a bit nervous about cutting it. It's silly, but I am so looking forward to a tomato that came off a vine instead of from hydroponics that almost no tomato can really live up to the hype. We'll see.

Just a Wish

I was aimlessly wondering the virtual aisles of eBay last night while I was watching a movie, and I came across a whole store dedicated to Japanese stuff. I looked at the snack foods I used to bike over to the grocery store near my office for, at maneki neko that weren't nearly worth what they were charging, and at bottles of my favorite tea. I wanted to get on a plane right then and wake up in Nagoya airport in 18 hours.

Summer in Japan is such a neat time. Each city has its own big party at some point, and the fireworks make everything I've ever seen in the States look like a wet sparkler by comparison. I loved the unity of a thousand faces sitting and watching the sky. Families, couples, groups of friends, everybody came out and spread blankets on the banks of the river, in one of the city parks, or even in emptied parking lots to see the show.

I can't help but think about the pottery festivals we always traveled to during this time of the year. Imagine a whole town covered with booths and tables full of handmade pottery, everything from everyday dishes to fine sculpture. Now imagine that town roped off so traffic can't enter the heart of it because the streets are absolutely thronged with people who have come from all over the region and country just for this two-day show. The makers are friendly and chatty, the prices are absurdly low because the important thing isn't the price, but that each piece is going to be appreciated and used, and every person you see is carrying way too many purchases. I long for it.

I also long for the simple sound of the glass furin I used to have hanging on my balcony. I had big ones and tiny fairy bells that hung from metal stakes in my potted plants. They were available at the dollar stores. I think I only have one or two left now. Over the years that have passed since I came home, many of them have broken. It was such a sound of summer to me, though, to be walking down the street and hear the music of those bells in someone's garden.

I dreamed all week last week that I went back to Japan. I don't know if it's just a wish or if it's something stronger than that. I think I'm going to try to sate the need by ordering some tea and soba. Those are certainly more affordable than a thousand dollar plane ticket.

Addictive

Yesterday, I decided to download the game Zuma to play for a short time. Four hours later, I was still trying to get the little grey frog to line up the colored spheres. Today, instead of Zuma, I looked around PopCap Games' website and found a game called Hammerheads. The game consists of ceramic yard gnomes of various types that pop up from a grassy looking background. Your job is to smash them with a hammer. I have to say, I've had a lot of fun today smashing gnomes with a hammer.

Those games are so addictive! I think I probably played that game for about three hours, and it's not like it stimulates my brain or gets anything even remotely productive accomplished. However, there is just something so relaxing about point, click, point, click, move to the next level. It's probably good I don't have an Xbox...

Things People from MS Should Know

Oddities in my life being what they are, today I was in an antique shop in a small MS town, and the woman behind the desk asked me, "Isn't Eudora Welty sort of a famous writer?" I looked at her with what I know had to be an incredulous expression on my face, and said, "Yes. Yes, she is." The woman went on to ask, "Isn't she from Mississippi?" I told her yes, Welty was from Jackson, and that she was very famous. The woman went on to comment that she thought she might have read something by Welty before but remained blank when I named three or four of the more commonly-anthologized or taught stories.

I think what prompted this bizzare conversation was a cookbook. Welty had a recipe included in one of the Jackson charity cookbooks, and she frequently signed those books for local fans. I suspect the lady behind the desk had one of these signed books because I saw her with something spiral bound in her lap, and when I told her that Milsaps would be celebrating the centenial of Welty's birth soon and that they had recently opened Welty's Jackson home, the woman's eyes got brighter and brighter with what I assume was probably hope for profit and not pride in a homegrown author.

This little encounter really started me thinking about how little the common person seems to know about Mississippi's legacy in the arts and literature. I think every man, woman, and child in this state ought to be aware that the following "belong to us":

1) Eudora Welty
2) William Faulkner
3) Richard Wright
4) Howlin Wolf
5) Muddy Waters
6) Robert Johnson
7) B.B. King
8) Elvis
9) Oprah


There are more, of course, but to live here and not to know these just baffles me. In fact, go to this website and see the whole whoppin' list. Mississipians, we may be last in a lot of things, but in production of writers and musicians, we need never bow our heads to any other state.

Changes and Transformations

This week has been very sweet. I've had to go into town a few times, but for the most part, I've been able to stay at home and relax. I've read a lot, gotten the materials together for a seminar I'm leading next week, cleaned up some of the messes that had accumulated here, caught up on bill paying, watched a video or two, and just generally enjoyed not having to go to school. I love my job, but sometimes a person needs a break.

My car is being repaired. I took it in Tuesday, and they gave me a rental, an Impala. I really miss my poor little PT Cruiser. I went by the body shop yesterday to get something I'd left out of the car, and they had removed the damaged bumper and rear light assembly. It looked forlorn sitting in the repair bay, but at least it's on the "road to recovery."

I own my car now, and that's a big deal for me. When I first bought it, I had just returned from Japan and I didn't have a job here, so it was purchased in my dad's name. For a variety of reasons, mostly because I'm way too old to live like that anymore, I wanted it in my name, so I recently bought my dad out on the loan. It's in my name now, and I feel much better. As soon as the repairs finish, I'm changing insurance companies because I loathe the thick-headed redneck moron my parents use, and the transformation will be complete.

I'm also trying to get my list of "crucial projects" together for this summer. Of course, the age-old cleaning out the storage room in the back of the house remains, but I also have some other stuff I need to take care of. Hopefully, I'll get some ambition to go with that and won't spend the whole summer curled up on the couch with a book.

Nancy Drew

My parents sent a huge box of stuff from one of their sporadic cleanings-out of the room that used to be mine, and in that box was an old hardback copy of a Nancy Drew mystery. I only ever owned one, but I know I read all of them when I was younger courtesy of our local public library.

In desperate need of a break from the pressures at the end of the year, I sat down one afternoon and read it. I think it took me all of two hours to read through the whole thing, but I was remarkably refreshed at the end. I think the saddest moment in the whole book dealt with damage to Nancy's trusty blue roadster. I put the book to the side and really didn't think about Nancy Drew again for awhile.

Sometime later, I was cruising one of my favorite junktique locations, and in two separate stalls, I saw some ten total copies of Nancy Drew. Remembering the pleasant afternoon I'd had reading the one from Mom and Dad's, I picked up one of the books to look at the cover art. To my surprise, the price tag was only a dollar. I decided I might pick another one and read it, too. By the time I'd looked at the descriptions of each book, I wound up walking out with all ten.

When I got home, as I do whenever something new/old catches my eye, I looked online to see what I could find about Nancy Drew. Apparently, in the years since I spent the summer going back and forth between Podunk and the library, stories, new series, and even some kind of stupid-looking movie have been made about good old Nancy. I, however, really am not interested in ultra-hip modern Nancy.

I like the classic mysteries from the 1930s to the 1960s. In addition to the joy of the simple mysteries, those old Nancy Drews also contain such candid little pictures of the evolution of what was "daring" for a woman. In one book from the late 30s, Nancy and her friends are outside at night setting an ambush for a criminal, and they put on their "dark colored dresses" to do it. I had to giggle. Teen aged girls setting an ambush for a potentially-dangerous criminal? Okay. Teen aged girls wearing pants? TOO shocking!

I've read several of these classic Nancy Drews now, and they're definitely predictable, but I still enjoy them. Sometimes, a formula is a good thing. I'm working on collecting a full set. eBay, as always, has plenty of Nancy Drew, some of them multi-book sets for very little money. The editions I'm collecting are by no means valuable, but I keep thinking that maybe someday I'll have a little girl who might enjoy reading them. In the meantime, I know I'll continue to get a kick out of the titian haired detective and her somewhat campy exploits.

Sadness

As this year is finally grinding to a halt, I felt sad today. Too many people are leaving, both students and teachers. I can't even imagine what next year is going to be like. Every project I'm a part of seems to be getting more complex instead of finding a path to move down easily. Weariness just washes over me in waves.

The primary cause of my sadness today was actually having to go down to the vocational center where Dad taught for a meeting. Just walking through the front doors and knowing he wasn't down the hall in his classroom, just knowing that he would never been down that hall and in that classroom again was more depressing than I can express. I wanted to go into his supervisor's office and ask her how she sleeps at night after telling such heinous lies. Of course I didn't. Professional people don't do things like that, I guess, and I still have barely enough reserve left not to do things like that.

I've been throwing out papers and old files. I found last year's class of AP students' writing samples. I don't know why those folders were even still in my cabinet. I found a whole drawer full of materials for Julius Caesar and To Kill a Mockingbird, and just not teaching those also made me nostalgic. It's getting a bit silly. There's too much change. Even my job is not going to be exactly the same next year; more responsibilities are coming, and while I welcome the challenge, right now, I feel totally inadequate to meet them.

Maybe it's just the time of the year. It's not a beginning where everything is fresh with hope. It's an ending with all the farewells, memories, and regrets that endings always entail. What I want to do more than any other thing is just get in my poor wounded car and run away for a couple of days. The pressure of being around all these endings is making my soul feel sore. It will be a few more days before that sort of escape can be a reality, though. In the meanwhile, I suppose I'll just hunker down and try to focus on the good instead of the lost and the wasted.

Graduation

Tonight, I watched all my little chickadees walk across the ersatz stage on the track to receive the last handshakes and the empty document folder. They are free now. I am so proud of them all. They gave prayers and speeches. They greeted or simply walked up to receive the fruits of twelve years of labor.

Watching them line up in their bright blue robes, they reminded me of baby birds who were just now fledged and ready to test their new wings. They had that same wondering look in their eyes as it began to set in that next year would not involve a seven-period class day or the restrictive security of the routine within red-brick halls. They strode proud and ecstatic or collected and calm, but each one shook our principal's hand with a new awareness, a new mantle of the future settling its weight, both liberating and unsettling, around their shoulders.

I wish the class of 2007 the best. They have certainly been a lot of fun to teach, and it's not every year that I can say that. They have so much potential, and it's been my very great privilege to watch them begin to stretch those wings. I hope as they soar away into whatever the future holds that they remember fondly those of us whose job it is to keep the nest ready and help the next class begin to believe in the power of their own beautiful flight. Dios te bendiga, class of 2007.

Decisions

I haven't been blogging much lately. There have been too many things swirling around in my head to allow for much reflective writing. Little pieces of my stable world have been crumbling off around the edges, and I've been trying to figure out some answers for a major decision or two.

The biggest decision of these is where I'll be teaching next year. I teach at a school that has a vocational school on the same campus, and for years, my father has taught there in one of their programs. Because of a personal vendetta on the part of his supervisor, his program is closing two years away from his retirement. He has jumped through all the hoops, and there is no recourse or way to stop the closing.

That alone is hard for me to swallow. Just the closing is enough. The fact that the program is going because of her personal venom is almost intolerable, and after Dad's board hearing (a farce beyond the farcical), I decided that I could not work for my school system anymore.

Since I had to go see my insurance agent in a city in another county, I decided to stop by that county's superintendent of education and see if they had any job openings. They did, and shortly thereafter, I found myself being offered the senior English/AP English job at their high school. I told their principal that I needed a week to consider, and I drove home full of questions to which I could find no answers. Was this a sign that I was supposed to change now?

So many things at my school have been crazy lately. The crazy screamer down the hall has been in full form; kids run up and down the halls with no control at all during 6th and 7th periods. I don't know what their teachers are thinking, or even if they are thinking, but they're certainly not keeping them in their classroom the way they're supposed to do. Also, as the numbers finally stabilize, I find I will have 26 AP students next year, and while I'm so excited about the program growth, I am trying to figure out when in the world I will get all their grading done, much less the section of Honors III I'll have.

This other job offered me a simpler world. I would not be one of three; I would be "the only". Discipline is tight, test scores are good, and the community is firmly behind this other school. As I sat in their office waiting to talk with the principal, I saw not one sad face, not on the office workers, not on those who were there to pick up their children, not even on the faces of the children who were coming in for some form of discipline. It was like another world. Nobody was out of control or sullen, adult or child. I cannot say it's not a tempting environment.

After long prayer for guidance and a conversation with my current principal, I came to my decision Friday. I cannot leave my current school. I've already met those 26 AP students, given them their summer reading, started them on the path for next year. I've even had somebody volunteer to be my TA for next year. There's so much I believe my school is capable of becoming, and although we have a LONG way to go before we are like the other school, I want to see us get there. I still have to call the other principal and turn him down, but I will be staying at Podunk High for better or for worse.

As soon as I'd made my decision, I felt a weight lift off me. While I know lots of my readers and my friends are never going to understand why I've made this choice, I feel a happiness and an optimism about next year. There is a chance for things to change radically next school year. I am hopeful that the problems of this year will be taken care of so we can begin to rise. We have pretty much hit the breaking point, so up should be the direction of choice from this point forward.

Crash

After an exceptionally long day travelling to Hoover, AL to see their high school as a part of our own school's attempts at redesign, I was on my way back to Podunk. I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before because I had a chance to visit with somebody who I don't see very often, and we stayed up late talking. I was coming over the top of an overpass, and suddenly, the car in front of me slammed on its brakes. I hit mine, too, and slid, but I managed to stop in time.

Unfortunately, the twenty-something kid behind me didn't. The back fender of my poor little car is crunched. It took out the tail light and the curve of the PT Cruiser fender. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, he had insurance, and the car is still drivable. I'll be dealing with the insurance mess today, but it was NOT the way I wanted yesterday to end.

Roux Injured

Yesterday was odd. I had no students except for 6th period's tiny bunch of juniors, and I also had to leave campus to go to a meeting at the CO, so my routine was totally blown.

I finished out my senior grades, took care of several chores in the room, finished up my reading of The Crucible for this year, and just generally got things done. I still have to clean up the room and batten down the hatches for summer, but mostly the big things are done. Since I've been able to get so much finished, I was able to leave school at a reasonable hour. It was still daylight and everything.

On the way home, the eastbound lane of I-20 was blocked completely by a multi-vehicle wreck. I saw a Neon with the back wheels of an eighteen-wheeler sitting on top of its hood. Traffic was backed up for about four miles and was steadily piling up. By the time I got to the Podunk exit, traffic was already stopping there, too. I remember thinking how glad I was that I wasn't any reason for me to have to be headed back toward the east.

When I got home, Roux didn't meet me. She always mugs me first thing when I get home, but even when I called, she didn't come. I walked down to the road calling her, and by the time I got back to the house, she was slowly dragging herself around the side of the porch. I knew when I saw how she was moving that something was wrong. When I got her inside and checked her, she had a hole in her abdomen.

After having a minor freak out, I realized that I had only about five minutes before my vet closed. I called them, loaded Roux as gently as I could into the car, and headed for the interstate only to find that the wreck was so bad that they had actually reversed traffic on I-20 East to come off the Podunk exit through Podunk and to a local road that runs parallel to the blocked highway. I think the fastest we moved until we got through Podunk was 15 mph.

Roux was just leaning against me. She wouldn't lie down. Once I got her to the vet, they looked at her and put in six staples. Apparently, she stabbed herself on a broken stick or limb. I can't imagine how she managed to do that, but I'm just so relieved she's okay. They gave me some pain pills and antibiotics for her, and I brought her home.

Today, she seems okay. She's not moving around very fast, and of course, trying to get these pills down her is NOT fun. To have to be more stubborn than a pit bull twice a day isn't easy. She'll take the pain pills okay because they dissolve in her mouth, but the gel coated antibiotics are another nasty matter. She spit this morning's out twice before I managed to throw it to the back of her throat, clamp her mouth shut, and rub her neck until she had to swallow.

Hopefully, she'll be back to her old self soon. I'm just so grateful that it wasn't worse and that she didn't puncture a major organ.

Random

Today, my AP students took this year's edition of the AP English exam (bing...welcome College Board cyberpolice....). I saw a couple of them afterward, and generally, they said they felt pretty good about the test. I'm looking forward to getting their writing prompts back so I can a)see what the prompts were and b)see if they marked the pages well. I was extremely hyper this morning as I was setting up the snack table for them. It was good that I was running around up and down stairs to carry stuff. It helped burn of some of that excess.

I also got to use one of my vintage tablecloths today. I used the one that had all the four leaf clovers and other good luck charms on it. It seemed appropriate. It's nice to be able to use these things I collect.

This school year is grinding to a close. I've got almost all my grades ready to turn in, and I've got most of what I have to prepare for next year done. That only leaves the AP Audit materials and a couple of other small projects. It's a nice feeling. I came home this afternoon, lay down on the couch, and the next thing I knew, it was almost dark. I guess now that everything is done, my body is simply going to TAKE what it needs by way of rest.

In other news, Dad just shot a snake in my yard. The dogs were going insane, and when I looked outside, I saw a copperhead coiled and striking at Roux and Yelldo. I got them to run away, and Dad came down to take care of the snake. Snakes are one of those things I have no intention of dealing with on my own. Had it been a king snake, I'd have let it go. Since it was poisonous, it had to go.

I'll try to write more later, and maybe that effort won't be so disjointed. Right now, it's bedtime, I think.

Witch Trials

I'm teaching The Crucible to my one tiny class of juniors right now, and we just wrapped up the history portion. It had been a long time since I'd even thought about the Salem Witch Trials. I guess it's not the sort of thing that is really common in the everyday mind.

I did a lot of research to make sure I had my facts straight before teaching it, and the deeper I dug, the more amazed and afraid I was. How did an entire group of supposedly sane and rational people suddenly decide that, with absolutely no proof other than the clever acting of a couple of disturbed teenagers, twenty five people deserved to die?

I keep thinking of Giles Cory lying between those two stone slabs and watching the dour, self-righteous faces of his judges as they placed another stone and then another on his chest until he simply stopped breathing. Who thought up the idea of "pressing"? What person woke up one morning and said, "This is a just thing to do to another person"?

There have been so many examples of hysteria like this, though. It's all too easy to look back from a twenty-first century viewpoint, feel superior, and scoff at the credulity of the Puritans, but we've certainly seen it since then. How else does one explain abominations like the Holocaust? It gets closer to home in the 1950s with McCarthy's crusades, and more recently, the same putrid vapors of mass panic have been scented in regard to terrorist attacks. Who knows but that tomorrow we may be calling in this generation's Cotton Mather to legitimize whatever fear is currently bearing evil fruit.

I am of two minds about going to Danvers. Part of me would very much like to see the place where this part of American history happened. Another part of me, though, feels like it's a desecration to those who lost their lives that tourists traipse through Witch Trials Wax Museums, buy "magic" souvenirs, and get their pictures made with the Bewitched bronze statue in the middle of town. Maybe, though, as long as they and the total breakdown of sanity that caused their deaths are remembered in some form or another, their memories are honored.

Looking for the Past

I just spent about thirty minutes looking for various and sundry people I knew from the past on Facebook. I have had a page for a long time now, but I seldom do anything with it. I wouldn't have gone there tonight had somebody from high school not sent me a message.

I think I found somebody I've been curious about since I graduated high school, but I can't be sure yet. If so, it will be the single-most useful moment of my entire association with either Facebook or MySpace. I am so hoping that the person I wrote to is the person I think I wrote to.

There's not much else to say. I'm still grading research papers. I don't think it is ever going to end. I only have one class left, though, so perhaps the faintest of glimmers is visible at the end of the tunnel.

Well, it's late, and I'm worn out from yarding today. Maybe the person will be who I thought they were so I'll have something interesting to write about later this week.

Busyness

This weekend, I caught up on some housework chores that I've been meaning to take care of for awhile. I redid my guest room so it now can function as a guest room rather than a depot for linens not in use. I took the bedroom set I had in my room before I got my peacock bedspread and moved a lot of my stuff from Japan in there as well. It's amazing how much difference it made. Of course, I now have to find things to go on my bedroom walls, but that too will be enjoyable.

Today, I did intensive cleaning. I think I folded every piece of clothing I own and put it away. It's amazing how easy it is to do laundry and how hard it is to find the time to fold it and properly put it away during the school year. I vacuumed up about three cats-worth of critter fur from all the carpets in the house, most of it from my long-haired grayish-white cat, Pearl. I still have a couple of things I need to do, but I am largely caught up. Since this week promises to be complicated, I think this is a good thing.

I also got a lot of sleep this weekend. That more than any other thing is going to help me. I feel as if I'm starting to fight a sinus thing, and maybe I slept enough to give my body a fighting chance. Almost every teacher I know has been struck down with the end-of-the-year crap, and I really can't afford to join those ranks.

I'm ending my weekend by mixing up my weekly batch of sourdough and watching the beautiful Mr. D'Onofrio. Tomorrow, I'll have to go back to the world outside my door, but at least when I get to come back home for five minutes, it will be a clean haven.

Making Peace with Hemingway

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
- Ernest Hemingway

I'm nearing the end of what has turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable course covering almost everything Hemingway wrote. I didn't expect to find any of the works that I could have more than a passing technical appreciation for, and I wasn't overly optimistic that I would feel any real affection for the author himself, either.

For the first few meetings, those prophecies were fulfilled. The female characters were laughable or downright unrealistic. Scenes of brutality were displayed that I could not abide. Everybody died. I got mad frequently.

Somewhere along the way, though, an overwhelming wave of pity filled me. I think it was about the time we read Green Hills of Africa and during the presentation, we did some online research and discovered that Hemingway sent for the gun his father had used to kill himself. There was never a happy ending possible for Hemingway, either in his fiction or in his real life.

To my surprise, I found a lot to enjoy. My book to present was For Whom the Bell Tolls, and in it and in The Sun Also Rises, I found a Hemingway I could appreciate. Even in Death in the Afternoon, I found treasure. Despite the fact that I can never condone bullfighting, I was moved by his obvious passion for it and all other things Spanish. The writing in the Nick Adams short story cycle was wonderful.

I have finally decided to just overlook the women. Clearly, based upon what happened to him in his real life, he had no idea about what a real woman was, wanted, or how one would behave. I don't blame him for the cardboard cut-outs; instead, I find it a source of profound pity for him.

As we had the last of the novel presentations last Wednesday for A Moveable Feast, the pseudo-legitimate memoir posthumously published by his last wife, the presenter mentioned the continual presence of the term "emptiness" throughout the book. It struck me as I sat there that this was the key, the final illumination needed to understand this complex man and his writing. He was consumed by the emptiness withing. He sought ever-increasingly more complex experiences, ever more alcohol, ever more dangerous sports, ever greater challenges, ever more admiring women in an effort to fill that void, and ultimately, when the emptiness could no longer be filled, it swallowed him whole. The progression, the foreshadowing, is very clear when you read all his works back-to-back. The darkness always lingers in his defiant, deprecatory comments about suicide as a coward's way and also in the constant lack of a happy ending for any of his characters.

I keep wondering what would have happened to him if he had found the thing he needed to fill that void. Would his voice have been stilled? Would the despair have turned to transcendent hope? I like to think that if he had found the thing that fills those dark shadows of the soul that instead of a legacy of tragedy, he might have left a legacy of triumph instead.

Ultimately, I have made my peace with Hemingway. There are several pieces that I would read again and several that I will shelve indefinitely. I no longer see him as a misogynistic anachronism. Instead, I see a troubled man who loved writing almost more than any other thing, and I feel a great compassion and honor for the struggle.

A Nice Break

Today is the last day of my Easter break. It has been a nice four days. I needed a rest terribly. Of course, all my good intentions for getting school work done went down the tubes, but I feel much more rested.

Right now, I'm stuck in the class from perdition. I have, so far, done research for the paper I'll write for my other class, checked on my eBay auctions, read and responded to my school mail, and I'm about to write up the mini-report needed for my Wed. night class. It's amazing what can be done in 2.5 hours.

I think my class is the only class still here. Almost everybody else cancelled class tonight like sane, humane people. Only my professor raves (literally) on.

In other news, I'm reading a really good book right now. It's called Gentlemen and Players and it's by Joanne Harris, the author of Chocolat. I stayed up later than I had intended reading it last night, and I'm probably going to hide it behind my laptop screen and read some more in just a minute. (Shameful behavior!!)

Well, I need to finish up some work for Wednesday night. I might come back and do another post as we grind toward the finish line for this week's edition of Purgatory.

Where Is Wonder Woman?

When I was little, my favorite superhero was Wonder Woman. I religiously watched the Lynda Carter show, owned at least one doll, and of course, had the Underoos. (I don't even know if they still make Underoos, but if they don't, today's kids are really missing a joy.) Whenever we were picking imaginary people to be in kindergarten or on the playground, Wonder Woman always came up as one of the most hotly contested choices. All of us girls wanted to be her. She was pretty, she was classy, she could kick butt, and at least on the show, she was the only person with brains in the whole outfit.

When my Mom was on one of her "clean out the kid's old room" kicks, she unearthed an old Avon hand mirror with Wonder Woman on it and sent it to me. That in conjunction with my current lifestyle of non-stop activity made me start thinking about Wonder Woman again. I found and downloaded the old theme song for the show and made it into a ringtone for my cellphone. I took a picture of the old mirror and made it into a wallpaper for the same phone. I guess it's sort of portable inspiration.

I was in a daze one day and cruising through Wal-Mart, and decided that it would be funny to find a little action figure of her to put on my desk for moral support. (When my blood sugar dips and I'm in Wal-Mart, all kinds of things seem funny that may or may not really be...) I rolled down the toy aisle, and lo and behold, no Wonder Woman. No female figures of any kind. I remember thinking, "What the...."
Spiderman was everywhere, X-Men were cluttering up the aisle, Superman was present, but there was not one female figure among them. What happened to Wonder Woman?

I have heard rumors that a movie is going to made about her. I hope so. I hate to think of all the little girls growing up without knowing about her. She taught us children of the 70s and 80s a lot. She taught us that it was okay to be strong, that it was right to be honest, and that ultimately one has to do the right thing. That may be a lot to draw from an admittedly cheesy TV half-hour show involving a woman in a star spangled shorts, a bustier and pantyhose (definitely a man's idea for a crime fighting outfit), but I still miss her. The idea of what she was at the core was always more important to us that the TV representation. She was a strong woman filling her place in the world with passion and determination, even when that place was difficult or dangerous. I think the world couldn't help but be a better place if Wonder Woman came back.

Fatigue Poisoning

If you fell down yesterday, stand up today. -- H.G. Wells

I heard a new phrase today: "fatigue poisoning". I think I have it whether it's real or not. I am so tired, physically, mentally, and emotionally, that I feel like I could sleep for a million years.

School continues to grind me into dust. I found out that one of the very first people I knew at my school is leaving. I can't blame him. I'm happy for him. He deserves to go somewhere where he can be happy and not have so much placed upon him, but I can't help but feel that this makes our chances of doing something with our school less.

Such a small thing shouldn't make me feel so negative, but there are other factors that combine with this and make me need a break. Easter Break starts tomorrow afternoon, and I'm hoping that it will be enough of a holiday for me to limp to the end of the year. I am going to finish up a test I'm giving tomorrow, and then I'm going to sleep. Hopefully that will let me make it through tomorrow.

Purgatory

I'm sitting waiting for the worst class in the world to begin. I finally resorted to bringing in my laptop for a diversion so I don't smack the teacher and run out screaming. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is the post you've all been waiting for....live from Podunk U, it's Monday Niiiiiiight.....

I just got to fill out a professorial evaluation form, and while I usually try not to mark the "Strongly Disagree" boxes, this time, I was gleefully checking them off. I cannot ever remember a class that so frustrated me. Right now, I don't even care what grade I get; I just want out.

I think this class would be a good modern version of Purgatory: it goes on forever, there are no gains, and it's definitely painful enough to make one wish to repent of whatever wrong had been done to land one here. It's a real shame, too. The class had such potential to be interesting. That, however, was pretty much choked out of it within the first two class meetings.

Well, I think I'm about to have to pretend that I'm paying attention. In reality, I will be grading papers, planning lessons, updating class websites, and lots of other things that I know are rude. I'm past politesse, however. It's all about survival.