Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Now, you have to be a Monty Pyton fan to recognize the title of this post. I love Monty Python. This particular title comes from the wonderfully inane song that caps the movie "The Life of Brian."

The opening verse and chorus of this song seems so appropriate these days:

Some things in life are bad

They can really make you mad

Other things just make you swear and curse.

When you're chewing on life's gristle

Don't grumble, give a whistle

And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...

Always look on the light side of life...

The rest of the song is here. Or you can go to YouTube and find the musical version.

So, why would this song be running through my head--other than the obvious: it's such a delicious song fraught with incredible irony in the context of the film? Easy--this has been a r-e-a-l-l-y bad week in the financial world. Yet, what am I thinking? Always look on the bright side of life.

I was musing this week about what impact the tumbling financial system will have on my family. Of course it will have an impact--I am not naive. But, then I think--my parents lived through the Depression. My mother and father were both born in 1919, so they were approaching their teens in 1930. They grew up through the height of depression years. My dad's family even moved from Oklahoma to California in 1933--no, they were not part of the great migration caused by the Dust Bowl, but they were called "Okies" nevertheless. But they survived. My mother told me about making dresses from the flour sacks--many people did in those days. People also grew their food--and sometimes had single dish meals of whatever vegetable was available.

Perhaps it was having those remembrances in mind that caused me to announce to my husband the other evening--if I have to, I'll grow my own vegetables. We certainly got far away from a simpler approach to living.

At the same time I was contemplating taking up vegetable gardening once more, I also spent time thinking about whatever things are true.

These things are true:

Chardonnay autumn light

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Late summer flowers in a fling of last blooming

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Autumn flowers in bright array

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Small birds, hidden, teasing with a chip, chip--then suddenly appearing to eat

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Cats in windows coveting same birds. . .

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So, even as you watch the news--take a deep breath and repeat a portion of a prayer by Julian of Norwich: all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Ah! Sweet Mystery. . .

Remember the errant suitcase that sat in the hallway, that caused me to conjure up visions of mischief? Or worse--bombs? Read the back story here.

I feared this mystery would never be solved, that I would have to live out my life not knowing what was in the suitcase. Time was--I only wanted to live long enough to know who Deep Throat was. Now we know---and I am amazed to find new mysteries to consume me.

Anyway, enough teasing--mystery revealed. Today, the bay secretary (that's the term given to the person who works to support all those of us whose offices are arranged around a common bay of printers and copiers) came into my office and said, sotte voce, a name. I looked up, puzzled and said--huh?

So and so, she repeated. Seeing my furrowed brow, she added--that's who left the suitcase in the hall. Ah! The name she had said was of a long-time professor here--in fact, he was the example number two in this previous post. It seems he likes to store things in the suitcase. . .for his Saturday class. Huh? I saw it in the hall on a Tuesday, and it had been sitting there all day.

How, you might wonder, did his ownership finally become clear? Even though he had left it in the hallway all day, he apparently went to look for it late in the day, and upon discovering it missing, called Lost and Found. Someone, he said, seems to have stolen my suitcase. Since Security is the department that removed it, it took a while for Lost and Found and Security to make the connection.

So, now I have a new mystery--why on the earth would a grown man, who has his own office--that he shares with NO ONE--need to carry around his "things"--whatever that may include--throughout the week, until his Saturday class? Hmmmm? Why indeed!

Tears Rolling Down My Cheeks. . .

No, dear reader, I am not crying as in crying. I am crying as in laughing.

You see, I have a new collection of goofs, and whilst searching for some on-line help in explaining similes and metaphors to students, I came upon this site--go there, and laugh, laugh, laugh. Then cry.

OK--the newest batch.

What the student said----------What the student meant

new-----------------knew

thrashed---------------trashed

thrive-------------------strive

close--------------clothes

chose--------------choice

viola---------------voilà

soul--------------sole

suite-------------suit

disaffecting-----------disinfecting

a custom-----------accustomed

waste-------------waist

tuff-----------tough

frevurently------------fervently*

straggles of being a woman---------struggles of being a woman

less it all be lost--------lest it all be lost

And--this sentence: How does glamour mean to you?

Well, I ask, how does it?

And we wonder why a certain governor from Alaska mangles the English language?

Kudos to all of you who bravely wove the last set of mangled English into wonderful sentences, some even in verse form. Check comments here if you missed them.

Your only assignment this time? Just read the hysterically funny metaphors here.
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*Obviously, a spelling error, but included because it was just so funny--a combination of reverently with fervently! I confess, there are times that I struggle (or is it straggle) long and hard to figure out what the student means.

You gonna eat that?

Food is a marvelous teaching device. I have three specific examples to illustrate this point. All three come from my church involvement.

When our daughter was in her middle school years, my husband and I agreed to teach Sunday School. No other teachers came forward, and since we wanted our daughter to have a good experience in Sunday School, we volunteered. So for two entire years, we taught every single Sunday. I took the lead in teaching, and my husband was the disciplinarian. Keeping 5th, 6th and 7th graders in line was far more challenging than teaching them.

I learned quickly that they respond well to food. I remember two wonderfully successful classes where the means to communicating the lesson involved food. On a particular Sunday, the basic lesson had to do with "gifts of the Spirit": see 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 for the full text.

I wanted to convey to each child that no matter what he or she might excel in, all their gifts blend together to the greater good. So, I passed around a bag of fruit. In the bag were individual pieces of fruit--apple, banana, grapes, peach, pear, orange, and lemon--only ONE of each. The bag passed from student to student around the circle. Predictably the lemon was left to last.

After each child had a piece of fruit, I asked what they could do with their fruit. Well, eat them, they all said, except the kid with the lemon. So, I then suggested we could do something for everyone if they would let me work with the fruit. I then began to peel and cut up the fruit, saving the lemon for last. I took the lemon, cut it in half then squeezed the juice over the entire cut-up fruit, now in a large bowl. Of course, I mixed it all together--and pronounced it FRUIT SALAD. Then, we all had a good size helping. I think the "different gifts" got through.

Another time, the message was focused on how important it is for us to care for the poor. That Sunday, we brought all the items for breakfast along: small cereal boxes, milk, orange juice, and bananas. Then we gave each child an envelope containing play money. We had divided the class into a mini-world. Arbitrarily, we had one child be rich, several children be "middle-class" and one child be poor.

We had put prices on each of the food items. The "rich" child could buy ALL the items, the "middle-class" children could buy one or another of the items. The "poor" child did not have enough to buy anything. He was crushed. So, with a little prompting, the children figured out that if they redistributed their money, even the "poor" child could buy breakfast.

The final food lesson came out of a different setting. I was the stewardship chair for our church's annual giving program. Now, if there's one thing I HATE to do it's ask for money. I just have a really hard time. But I did light upon a way to illustrate the need to give. When I gave my main stewardship talk from the pulpit, I had ten apples lined up. I said--God gave me ten apples to use as I needed, and only asked that I return one apple to God--a tithe. So, I put 4 apples aside to pay for my house, I put one aside to buy a car, I put another 2 aside to buy clothing, I put 2 aside for food. Then I looked at the remaining apple. It was a beautiful nice shiny red apple. I turned it around in my hand, and then said--I will just take a small bite out of this apple. So I took one, then another, then another. Finally, I was left with just the apple core. Then I said--I don't have one apple left to give to God, so I will just give God this apple CORE. And then I sat down and stopped talking.

No other words were needed to convey the point.

Food--it's a great way to communicate a message.

Vacation's Over

Well, we drove our daughter to the airport yesterday for her return to the UK. We had a lovely visit--lots of family time, a quick trip to see Grandpa and Grandma, shopping, eating out. But mostly we were beginning plans for a wedding--next fall.

I may even do a future post on a bit of planning.

I continued classes through this hiatus, so I have a new set of English language goofs. See the first set here.

What the student said----------What the student meant

say your fair-wells-----------say your farewells

beet (an opponent)-----------beat

the Virgin Island------------the Virgin Islands

way----------------------weigh

know----------------------no

ride-----------------------right

cold-----------------------could

dosing---------------------dozing

some up a thought-----------sum up

finely---------------------finally

armor personal----------armored personnel

Olympic meTal----------Olympic meDal

boarders of America------borders of America

touché------------------touch

query------------------quarry

The last one really had me stumped at first. The student was writing about her father doing scuba diving in a query. And I thought--is this some technical term I don't know? I finally (or maybe finely) figured it out: quarry.

Now, your assignment--write a paragraph using all the erroneous words when you really mean the correct words. Just kidding. . .

You Can't Be Too Careful*

* I am still on my blogging "vacation" but I just had to share this story.
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It was sitting there when I walked down the hall at 8 a.m. Truth be told, I didn't think anything of it at the time. After class, I walked back to my office and it was still there.


When my next class started, just after lunch, I noticed that it was still there. Now, I was curious--and just a little uneasy. It was an old green suitcase, just sitting there on a table in the hall of the Arts building where I teach. Perhaps, in another time, I would have shrugged, and just ignored it again. But this time, I felt the weight of the craziness in which we live.


We live in an age when people, intent on destroying something, put bombs in suitcases. We live in an age when, because some people plotted to blow up a plane using ordinary liquid chemicals they planned to put into shampoo or other cosmetic bottles , we can no longer take bottles larger than 3 oz. on planes. We live in an age when someone tried to turn his shoe into a bomb, and so now we all dutifully shed our shoes as we approach airport security.

What an age we live in.

So, I put down my class books, turned around and walked back to my office and said to the secretary--here's a strange assignment. There's a green suitcase just sitting in the hallway. It was there at 8 a.m. and now 4 and a half hours later, it's still there. She did not laugh at me; instead her eyes got big, and she said--I'll call security right away. What an age we live in.

When my class was over, the suitcase was gone. I am trying to find out what happened to it--so far, no luck. On seeing the secretary today, I asked her if she had heard anything, but she had not.

We Interrupt this Blog. . .

. . .so that KGMom can go off to Wall Street, and help fix the financial situation? No, no that would not be it.

. . .so that KGMom can make a trip somewhere and bring back tales and photos? No, no that would not be it. (That would be the reason mid-October when I go to San Diego to chair the PDA meeting.)

. . .so that KGMom can parry the excuses of students who send emails TWO days after missing class when a paper was due, and then say "I skipped class because I was suffering from flu-like symptoms; please excuse my paper being late"? No, no that would not be it, even though such emails do make me go a touch ballistic.

No, dear reader, we interrupt this blog so KGMom can enjoy a visit from a certain wonderful person from the UK.

Be back in a week or so.

Pulling Tricks Out of My Bag

One of the things that keeps me returning to teaching each semester is that there is always, always something new to deal with.

I try to keep in mind, I am the teacher, in charge of the class. I walk in, and it's my "show." But there are students who challenge that.

Several semesters back, I had a plain outright BAD section. In desperation, part way through the semester, I asked my husband who works in education what to do. He suggested, given group dynamics, there are times when a group just picks up cues from certain individuals and there is NOTHING you can do. This class had one student who was clearly racist. When I asked, for discussion, what would happen when the ethnic distribution in the U.S. shifts away from majority white what would the result be--this student spoke first and said--NOTHING. Whites will still be in charge. So much for diversity and sensitivity.

Then there was the ESL student who outright plagiarized. How did I know? I started reading her paper, and thought--hhhmm, this sounds familiar. It was. Her sister had turned in the same paper two semesters before. But, in the meantime, I had changed the assignment! Just goes to prove, plagiarizing is ALWAYS a dumb move.

And, who can forget, Mac Cheese? Enough said.

Now this semester--what could be my new challenge?



Why, students who sleep in class. Now, I have had this circumstance before. One student fell asleep and his books slid off the desk, landing on the floor with a LOUD bang, waking him up. I talked to him at the end of class, and he said--oh, I was planning to drop the course anyway.

But this semester, in each of my two sections, I have a student who sleeps consistently. I don't stand for it. First, how can you learn while you are asleep? Second, it is disrespectful. So, I call them out. One section begins at 8 a.m., and there sits this one guy in the back of the room, head propped against the wall, asleep. So I stop talking, wait a bit, then call his name.

The other section begins at 12:30 p.m., and two students, both guys, sit in the FRONT row, put their heads down and sleep. So, I walk over, bend down and peer into their faces. The other students giggle, which wakes them up. One of these two guys does look apologetic, but the other clearly could care less. Time to call them out and say--enough. I have warned them, I will mark them absent if they sleep through the whole class.

What else is there to do? I know these students are over-scheduled. Many work nearly full-time jobs (this is characteristic of a community college). But, I am unapologetic--I have worked in the business world, and people who sleep on the job get fired.

OK--I feel better. Anyone else have tricks to add to my bag?
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photo credit: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=brain-gain-brain-wave-boo

It’s About Time

As it happens, the prior post that I wrote—“Who Will Remember?”—turned out to be my 300th blog entry. I chose not to mention it then, as it seemed out of place to be pointing to my writing, when the issue at hand was an issue of far greater import.

Reading through the comments, I was struck with the observation by my blogging buddy, Philip. He noted that few people remember 9/11—but not 2001, as most of us would instinctively think, but 1973. That is the date that Salvador Allende, President of Chile, died during a coup d’etat. It is now known that his death was suicide, but at the time it seemed that he died as a result of the hostile action. This infamous coup had U.S. government complicity fingerprints all over it.

This coincidence of events got me to thinking about time—actually, I have frequently had these thoughts, but have not until now written them down. I guess I didn’t take the time before.

It is one of the attributes of being human—this propensity to get all wrapped up with time. Surely one of the things that separates humans from other animals is our ability to recall the past, and anticipate the future. We may not be alone in these traits, but we have refined them more than any other animal on earth.

Remember when we approached the turning of the century—passing from 1999 to 2000? People got down-right crazy. There were millennial predictions of doom. Depending upon one’s religious slant, people thought time could end with the dawn of 2000. That always struck me as incredibly silly since the marking of 2000 years since the birth of Christ is not a precise fixed moment. In fact, theologians who try to pin down the exact year of the birth of Christ calculate that he was most likely born 3 or 4 years B.C. (I love that particular conundrum.)



Since there are only 365 days in a year, the chance of there being multiple events that have occurred on any specific date, but in different years, is myriad. One of the assignments I sometimes give to my English Composition students is to research something of world significance that happened on the day and month of their birthdays. I begin this assignment by telling them about the bombing of Dresden at the close of World War II. This exercise always gets their attention—students are suckers for any story. I go into great detail about the fire-bombing that resulted in such massive destruction and thousands of deaths. Then I say—why do you think I am telling you this story? Usually, I get blank looks. So, then I say—the event occurred on the day I was born. Now, your assignment is to find out something of world significance that occurred on the day you were born.

So, another 9/11 has come and gone. And we all remembered the events of 2001, having long forgotten the events of 1973, if we ever noted that date. It’s about time that we expanded our horizons, and note our dates of significance and also note the dates of significance elsewhere in the world.

Explanation of photos:
Sunrise, sunset, moonrise—all markers of time for us.

Who Will Remember?

When the planes flew into buildings seven years ago, our focus--like the entire world's--was on Manhattan. But we were also particularly concerned about and focused on Washington, D.C. At the time, our daughter was a student at Georgetown, and from the house where she was living, she and her roommates could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon burning after the plane crashed into it.

While seven years is not a long time, it is enough time that some memory begins to fade. In class today, I departed from my usual approach, and just spent a bit of time asking the students how their lives have changed because of the events of September 11, 2001. The truth is--they are so young, most of them 18, that they do not recall a time when you didn't have to remove your shoes to fly on a plane. One student said--well, his life had changed because with the high price of gas, he had to drive the speed limit. (Humph, not a bad thing, maybe!)

But there are many, of course, whose lives changed forever. The people who died in the planes, in the World Trade Center, and in the Pentagon all had families. Those family members will always remember how their lives were changed that day.

However, time will pass--and some day, the observances will be historical, not personal. Fewer people will remember where they were when they heard the news. September 11, 2001 will become like November 22, 1963, or December 7, 1941.

I want to share with you a terrific poem by a Brooklyn born poet, Martín Espada . I first read this poem very soon after September 11, 2001, and thought the poem captured perfectly how to remember this event.
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Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100
by Martín Espada

for the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack on the World Trade Center

Alabanza. Praise the cook with the shaven head
and a tattoo on his shoulder that said Oye,
a blue-eyed Puerto Rican with people from Fajardo,
the harbor of pirates centuries ago.
Praise the lighthouse in Fajardo, candle
glimmering white to worship the dark saint of the sea.
Alabanza. Praise the cook's yellow Pirates cap
worn in the name of Roberto Clemente, his plane
that flamed into the ocean loaded with cans for Nicaragua,
for all the mouths chewing the ash of earthquakes.
Alabanza. Praise the kitchen radio, dial clicked
even before the dial on the oven, so that music and Spanish
rose before bread. Praise the bread. Alabanza.

Praise Manhattan from a hundred and seven flights up,
like Atlantis glimpsed through the windows of an ancient aquarium.
Praise the great windows where immigrants from the kitchen
could squint and almost see their world, hear the chant of nations:
Ecuador, México, Republica Dominicana,
Haiti, Yemen, Ghana, Bangladesh.
Alabanza. Praise the kitchen in the morning,
where the gas burned blue on every stove
and exhaust fans fired their diminutive propellers,
hands cracked eggs with quick thumbs
or sliced open cartons to build an altar of cans.
Alabanza. Praise the busboy's music, the chime-chime
of his dishes and silverware in the tub.
Alabanza. Praise the dish-dog, the dishwasher
who worked that morning because another dishwasher
could not stop coughing, or because he needed overtime
to pile the sacks of rice and beans for a family
floating away on some Caribbean island plagued by frogs.

Alabanza. Praise the waitress who heard the radio in the kitchen
and sang to herself about a man gone. Alabanza.

After the thunder wilder than thunder,
after the booming ice storm of glass from the great windows,
after the radio stopped singing like a tree full of terrified frogs,
after night burst the dam of day and flooded the kitchen,
for a time the stoves glowed in darkness like the lighthouse in Fajardo,
like a cook's soul. Soul I say, even if the dead cannot tell us
about the bristles of God's beard because God has no face,
soul I say, to name the smoke-beings flung in constellations
across the night sky of this city and cities to come.
Alabanza I say, even if God has no face.

Alabanza. When the war began, from Manhattan to Kabul
two constellations of smoke rose and drifted to each other,
mingling in icy air, and one said with an Afghan tongue:
Teach me to dance. We have no music here.
And the other said with a Spanish tongue:

I will teach you. Music is all we have.
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from Alabanza: New and Selected Poems, 1982-2002 (W.W. Norton, April 2003).

Don't You Just Love the English Language?

Every year, when I get the first set of papers from students, I look forward to (or do I dread) reading them.

There are always some mistakes that are so funny they cause me to laugh. Homophones provide much of the humor. English has so many words that sound alike--and for whatever reasons, students seem particularly prone to using just the wrong word in the right situation.

I wrote about this phenomena last year, and you can see the mistakes from that semester here.

Here's the new gathering of hilarious mistakes. I will start with the more mundane ones:

What the student said----------What the student meant
there--------------------------------their
then---------------------------------than
where-------------------------------were
maybe------------------------------ may be
rite--------------------------------- right

Now the more amusing ones:
What the student said----------What the student meant
pasted----------------------------passed (as in died)
exponentially----------------------exceptionally
existent--------------------------exist
mist------------------------------missed (as in missed the train)
back round-----------------------background
ferrous---------------------------feral (as in cats--of course, ferrous cats are those iron ones!)

And my favorite:
O-zone-------------------------- ozone (maybe the student meant as in O-zone, not P-Zone or Q-zone)

Ahh, teaching English. A source of endless amusement.

Poor Pearlington

About a year ago, I travelled to the Gulf Coast, as a member of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance advisory group. One of the places we visited was Pearlington, Mississippi.

It was with great sadness that I read today that Pearlington was once again hit hard by a hurricane, this time Gustav. And now folks are wondering if they should just pack up and leave. The New York Times featured an article on this tiny place. As the article notes:

"Now, Pearlington once again finds itself facing a painful question: Is it worth
it to rebuild?
Flooding from the latest hurricane covered roads and stranded several residents who could not bear the thought of leaving what they had only just renovated. The damage meant more construction bills, more calls to the insurance agent, more tearing out waterlogged walls and more neighbors who just disappear."

Read the whole piece here.

Disasters always affect people, as well as buildings and such. Life is sometimes too hard. Think about the people in Pearlington this week. And hope that the two new hurricanes forming in the Atlantic spare other small places such as Pearlington. And, if you are so moved, you can give time or money to help.

What are Families For?

For years, my mother's family has had a family reunion, usually on the Saturday before Labor Day. Sometimes we go, sometimes we don't. Since the reunion is held yearly, and since folks only stay around for a couple of hours, we haven't always taken the time to travel several hours on the PA Turnpike to eat a lunch, catch up on bits of family news, and see who is ageing faster than we are.

But this year, we did attend the reunion. In fact, we arranged a double-header. The schedules of my brother and my sister made it possible for them to come to Pennsylvania for this annual reunion. This is not the norm--usually schedules keep them away, in Indiana, or in Manitoba. But this year, the stars aligned, and people returned to central PA.

So in anticipatory recognition of another event, my husband and I held a family dinner at our house the night before the family reunion. The other event is my father's 90th birthday. Next June, he will turn 90. Since it is not certain that everyone would be able to gather then, we celebrated that birthday now. The photo at the top is one taken at that gathering.

Of course, photos allow us to mark the moment that something singular occurred. This photo above was brought to my mother's family reunion, and I bought it in an auction we had. Pictured are my mother (far right) and her entire birth family--her five brothers, and her two sisters. And of course her father and mother. The photo is over 50 years old, and all the people pictured are no longer living. The photo keeps our memories clear. Families--they are our bedrock foundation, if we are lucky.

How to Ruin Your Life in Three Easy Steps

The neighborhood we live in is bounded on two sides by rather large apartment complexes. While our small neighborhood is very stable—families move in and like to stay—the apartments attract a more transient population.

Lately, within the past year, the foot traffic through our neighborhood has increased dramatically. It seemed to pick up when one of the neighbors, whose house backs on the one apartment parking lot, cut down a paper bark willow tree. The tree had blocked a direct line of sight—when it was standing, you could not look through to see the apartments. After the tree was down, you can look right through and actually see an apartment balcony. Maybe that clear shot view has encouraged local teens to walk through.

Where we live is within one mile of the local high school, which means at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, quite of few teens are walking through our neighborhood.

So what, you might say. To answer, let me take you back to last winter. Two doors down from our house is our neighborhood’s Good Neighbor Sam. He is the one who breaks the curve for the neighbors. He mows his lawn twice in one week, he clips his shrubbery meticulously. He is seemingly not happy unless he has a project of some sort going. He came out on a winter morning, started his car and went back in his house briefly. In that flash of a moment, a teen walking through the neighborhood saw the running car, and decided to “borrow” it. The car was quickly found by local police, in the high school parking lot. But there was no way of telling who took it.

Until yesterday. Yesterday was a non-teaching day for me, so I was sleeping in, a bit, when I was awakened by my furiously barking dog. She was on our sun porch looking out the window and up the street. So, I looked too. There were two police cars, my neighbor Good Neighbor Sam and his dog, and another neighbor. With them was a young man, sitting on the curb. Shortly three more local police cars drove up.

It seems the kid—because that’s what he is—had taken the car back last winter, kept the keys, then decided to take it again two days ago. Good Neighbor Sam found it at the high school again, and went out and bought a club. Then yesterday morning, the kid walked through again, decided to jump in the car, saw the club, promptly jumped out—but this time he was seen by Good Neighbor Sam, and another neighbor. Case solved.

Except for the kid who has totally screwed up his life. Sadly, it was even someone I had seen in the neighborhood several times before and talked to, trying to be friendly. And, ironically, he was not an apartment resident, not a transient, but someone whose family has lived nearby for many years. Life ruined.

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photo from http://www.acehardware.com/sm-the-club-and-reg-steering-wheel-lock-1000--pi-1297759.html

Mea Culpa*

*mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Every semester, I make a really big deal about cell phones in class. I put a statement in my syllabus. I tell students to mute cell phones on coming to class. I tell them if they have a home emergency pending to tell me ahead of time so if they get buzzed, I don't get nasty. I have even called out students who surreptitiously text down below the desktop, thinking perhaps that I can't see.

I throw out an additional precaution before an exam--I tell students if I see you so much as touch your cellphone, you are out of here and your exam will be scored as a 0. Oh, I am one mean teacher.

So, imagine my surprise in my morning class when a cell phone started ringing. I looked around expecting to see some student dive for her purse or his book bag. No one moved. So I waited--I stopped talking. All the while, the cell phone merrily warbled its call. Finally, it stopped.

Well, I said, just a reminder to please put your cell phone on vibrate, or mute them. I was feeling very smug--what a great way to remind them. Someone's cell phone rings, everyone is too intimidated to answer it, and I make my point about SILENCING YOUR CELL PHONES.

After class, I got back in my office, and looked at my cell phone. GULP. It was MY cell phone that had rung. I had forgotten to silence my own cell phone. There was the message: ONE MISSED CALL.

Oh dear. But, if you think I am going to own up to the students that it was my cell phone, think again. In fact, I chuckled on the way home--point made. Now everyone will think---sheeese--don't let your cell phone ring in her class.

Infinite Variety

When I was in graduate school and took the obligatory Shakespeare course, each student had to select one of the plays to concentrate upon. I chose Anthony and Cleopatra. I still love this play, for many reasons. One of the reasons I love it so is because of the shimmering phrases various characters utter to describe Cleopatra.

In an early scene, Enobarbus, who is Anthony's lieutenant, says of Cleopatra:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies. . .

Anthony and Cleopatra, Act II, scene ii, lines 271-274

That phrase--infinite variety--applies to one person in the context of the play, but I can't help but think of this phrase and apply it to all humanity.

Today, my husband and I sat at our customary Saturday morning breakfast in our local diner. I was casually looking around, and suddenly said--I am constantly amazed at the infinite variety of the human face. My husband--who is a seasoned people watcher--agreed. He remarked that he recently spent time sitting and watching the parade of people that passed by him while he was at a conference.

People's faces. Think about it--the raw materials are relatively limited. Two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth--all assembled within the frame of a face, but within those limitations, so many variations. I find it just plain astounding.

Photo source:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/images/people-faces.jpg

It reminds me of two questions our daughter asked when she was a growing girl. She was pondering infinite variety in these questions. One time she asked me if there was any place in the United States that had never had a human walk upon it. What a wonderful (and unanswerable) question.

She topped that question when she asked one day whether or not we would run out of music. I wasn't quite sure what she meant, so she explained--there are only so many musical notes, and only so many ways of putting them together. When will we run out of new songs? Rather like my wondering about the endless variety of human faces.

One of my favorite painters is Thomas Eakins. I have read quite a bit about him, including his somewhat misanthropic life. He was not a warm and fuzzy person. One of the things that made him particularly controversial was his insistence on studying the human body, and on painting full nudes. The prudishness of America found his penchant for nudes, well, scandalous.


Eakins was known as a portraitist, although he was out-shone by his contemporary John Singer Sargeant who was widely regarded as the best portrait painter of his era. When I look at Sargeant's portraits, however, there is something cloying and too sweet about them. Oh, they are charming enough, but there is no humanity in them. They are just pretty paintings.


Eakins knew how to paint a portrait in such a way that all the infinite variety of humanity is caught therein. Years ago, I saw Eakins' painting of his wife, an artist in her own right, Susan Hannah MacDowell, which was on display in the then newly opened Hirshhorn Gallery. I loved the painting on first viewing it, and still love it. This painting is a PORTRAIT.

So much humanity in this lovely face. In her eyes there is a knowing weariness; she has seen much. There is triumph, there is resignation. There is beauty, there is decay. Infinite variety indeed.

The Call to Write

I shamelessly have appropriated the title of a wonderful writing text as my blog title. This text, which is NOT currently on the list of approved texts that I may choose for my writing class, underscores the ways in which we write and need to write--even though many of us feel we are not writers. It is this message that I hope to convey to my students this semester.

But, it doesn't appear that this semester will be marked with no crises. In fact, day one brought the first crisis. My early class begins at 8:00 a.m. Since I am by personal tendency a late riser, it will take me a bit of time until my body kicks into early-mode. Day one events in this section brought me to full attention. I began class as I usually do--taking attendance (noting a higher than usual number of day one no-shows); handing out syllabi; reviewing course expectations; indicating what materials are required of students. . .WAIT--is that a different textbook I see on every student's desk?

It would be! How did that happen? After about 30 seconds of personal panic--which includes me briefly entertaining that thought that maybe I will have to re-work the course (again)--I decide to break the awful news to the students. YOU ALL HAVE THE WRONG TEXTBOOK. When I ask if that's what the college bookstore sold them, they all mutely nod.

I then quickly review mentally the book ordering process. Oh, I remember. By late June, I had not gotten any inquiry from the writing coordinator as to which text I planned to use. So I sent her an email. Her response--I just put in an order for the texts you used last year. No problem, I thought. I like those texts and am happy to continue using them. The only explanation, then, for the wrong textbooks being ordered is that either the writing coordinator DIDN'T really know which texts I used OR the bookstore goofed. Whatever the reason, the students should be made whole in their purchases.

So I fired off an email to the bookstore, indicating which courses I taught, indicating the name of the correct textbooks, and that my students would be returning the wrong one so they could get the correct ones. Crisis averted--although it wreaks havoc on my course calendar.

Back to day one of class. After I go over the stuff that is (frankly) boring, but essential, I had the students working in small groups on an opening exercise. I ask students to write out a shopping list--that's what I said in the first section. By the time I had the second section, I had amended the instruction to say what I really intended--a grocery list. Then I ask students to come up with two ways to organize the list. The point of the exercise is to get them thinking about how they gather information and then organize it.

What is fun about this exercise is the ITEMS students put on the list. Well, this year a new item appeared on the list--condoms! I have long ago learned not to blanch when students say (or write) something that they think may shock or surprise me. Of course, since part of the point of the exercise is to see how they organize their lists, I asked the condom group their organizational pattern. Not surprisingly, this group had no organizational pattern. I think they were just titillated about the prospect of seeing how I would react that they forgot to organize.

A quick point of reference--other groups organized their lists alphabetically, or by perishables/non-perishables, or by food groups, or by solids/liquids. Yes, one group did use solids/liquids as their organization. Since they had bread on the list, I was curious where they placed that item. Um, they said, on liquids. I did have to laugh at that.

Well, the semester has begun. And I am hoping the textbook fiasco is the only major crisis. I have been teaching long enough, though, to know it might not be. But, crisis or no, I hope to inspire just one or two students to want to write and write well.

Oh, I Give Up!

Try as I might, I am simply no match for those of you who are nature experts: Julie, Tom, Nina, Laura, Mary, Ruth and countless others whose blogs I read with great fascination.

Really, I do love nature. I love watching the seasons change--a wonderful benefit from living in central PA--I love watching birds, and all manner of outdoor creatures, I love the animals living with us. I love tending to my flower gardens.

So, it was a thrill to spot a lovely butterfly as we returned home from a brief shopping trip today. I dashed downstairs (dog hot on my trail wondering where I was going) to grab my camera. The butterfly was first spotted on red zinnias, and then flitted away to some pink zinnias and some dianthus. She (or he?) was not too cooperative in maintaining an open wing stance so I could photograph the lovely design clearly.





I was convinced that all I needed to do was download the photos, type "butterfly" and maybe even "eastern U.S." into Google, and I would find a quick ID. No such luck.

So, I give up. I have a series of photos of a lovely unidentified butterfly. Anyone able to help me?

UPDATE: here's a great site for photos to ID butterflies.

It's Show Time

Did you, by any chance, see the movie "All That Jazz"? In the opening sequence, Roy Scheider, who plays the lead character based on director/choreographer Bob Fosse, starts his day. After he gets up, he goes through morning ablutions--he puts on a classical music tape, puts eyedrops in his eyes, downs a glass of Alka-seltzer, opens a bottle of amphetamines, pops a couple, slaps his cheeks, then opens his eyes wide looking in the mirror and pronounces "It's show time!"

Well, folks, it's show time. In less than a week, classes resume at my community college. For the past several weeks, I have been poring over textbooks, once again retooling my course. I don't quite know why I do this--I could practically teach this course with my eyes (and textbooks) closed. But I don't. Every so often, I try to reconfigure the basic approach to the course.

Partly, I do this to keep the material fresh for me, but also I do this because the students deserve to have an instructor who is fully engaged with her material.

You might think this is only appropriate--and what every instructor would do. And you would be wrong if you thought that.

I have heard stories to the contrary. Three instances come to mind.

First, several years ago, as I walked down the hall of the building where I teach, I passed a classroom. The professor holding class was using an overheard projector, and had a PURPLE copy of a document projecting on the screen. So, you ask. Well, purple copies can only mean one thing. The document had to be at least 30 years old, produced by a spirit duplicator process long abandoned. If the document was so good, why on earth not have it retyped by word processing and printed anew? I'll let you draw your own conclusion as to why.

Second, I have been told of a professor who tends to do his course introduction by showing a video tape of himself giving the course intro. OK. But, this particular video was made when he first started teaching, more than 30 years ago. He even jokes to current classes about how young he looked then. Really! Wow. I am speechless--how can a course NOT change in 30 years?

Finally, a student I know remarked that the professor she had for a course, that included using maps, had outdated maps. How did the student know? The maps featured the OLD names for countries. And, no, this was not a history course where knowing that once a place was called Asia Minor, and is now called Turkey. Or once this area was part of the Ottoman Empire and is now independent. This was a course about current issues. Yet the professor used outdated maps. When that fact was called to his attention, his response was to be hostile to the student who had pointed this out. You would think that a course on current issues would NEED to have CURRENT material, wouldn't you?

Now, before any of you thinks this post is a rant against tenured faculty, let me stop you. I am wholeheartedly in favor of tenure. Education needs to be independent of the political whims that toss public thinking back and forth. A teacher in the classroom should not be bullied by a parent who happens to sit on the school board, or who might belong to the same country club as the college president, or who may have more money to give to the college than someone else. A teacher should not be harassed because she belongs to a particular political party.

But I do fault fellow faculty for being lazy, or insufficiently devoted to their chosen profession that they do not do all they can to give students a quality education.

Next week, I will open my eyes, blink a couple of times , eschew the pills Bob Fosse used, and head to the classroom. I will announce my name, inform students this is English Comp, in case they have wandered into the wrong classroom, and the show will begin.

Handi-cat-accessible

I have introduced you to Allie--our sweet female cat who lolls lazily on the highest ledge of the cat tree.

Now meet Cassidy. Cassidy is now 12 years old, and is showing his age.


My daughter and I went to the local humane society 12 years ago, intent on getting two kittens. We saw quite a few very young (and somewhat sickly looking) kittens. And then we saw two brother kittens, about 10 weeks old, playing together in one cage, completely ignoring us. We walked over to the cage--they stopped playing briefly, sniffed our hands, then went back to tussling just like two little rambunctious boys. Of course, we picked them!


On the way home, we talked about names. For some reason, my daughter wanted to name them Frank and Jesse (as in the James brothers) or Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. I wasn't wild about those names, so I suggested--if it's western quasi-outlaw names you want, how about Sundance and Cassidy. So that's what they were named.




Sundance was a gorgeous lovable cat. But after a couple of years, he began peeing almost anywhere except the litter box. In desperation, I tried putting every imaginable barrier--such as metal shelving--on the floor to keep him directed to the litter box. After a bit of time, we took him to the vet (duh!). Turns out he had chronic renal failure. He lived only 4 years; it was very hard to leave him go.




Now Cassidy is beginning to slow down some. You know the crazy things we do for our pets? Well, at some point I began giving him a small dish of food and water on my bathroom counter. And now that's his favorite place to eat. BUT. . .he can't quite make the jump these days.


So, what do I do? I build a stairway for him!




And since he can't jump up on our bed--one of his favorite sleeping places--we ordered a pet staircase. (I know, I know!)




Now our house is handi-cat-accessible!

That look proves the old saying: dogs have masters; cats have staff!

Summer Interrupted

I was all of 15 years old. Since my parents had returned to their missionary work in Africa while I remained in the U.S., living with relatives, I was visiting an uncle and aunt, on my mother's side of the family, who lived in Ohio.

It was a quintessential summer--sun filled days that leave your skin smelling fresh. My uncle was a pastor at a church in south-west Ohio, about 50 miles north of Cincinnati. I loved visiting them because my uncle and aunt had 4 daughters who were close to my age. Talk about a teenager's dream--being with 4 cousins in high summer. The dream went into overdrive when one of the members of my uncle's congregation asked if we wanted to help bale hay.

Well, sure--especially since there were several teenage boys involved. I can recall the smell of that newly mown hay--with all its tangy sweetness.

This summer reverie was interrupted when the telephone rang. News from central Pennsylvania where my father's parents were living. My paternal grandmother had died somewhat unexpectedly. She and my grandfather were visiting relatives in southern Ontario, when her heart--which had been very weak for many years--simply gave out.

At first, I thought it all an awful joke--but it was most certainly real. Another uncle, my father's brother, came to get me so we could return to central Pennsylvania for the funeral.

Years later, I caught a scent of fresh mown hay--and the recollection of my grandmother's death came flooding back. So, I wrote a poem, shared here with you.

Photo from http://www.americanafoundation.org/agnatresources.asp

Age Born

The smell of hay hurts
With its sweetsharp tang
Ohio evenings—
Riding high
Doing no work
But slyly flirting with
Smooth brown farm boys.

Sky turning on an amber cloud
Brings twilight
In that musty clapboard
Church balcony
We sit pondering
Fine details of morality
Long gone.

Ritual of school ended
Our lemonaded night
Uncurls to distant lights
Golden girls giggling
At reveries of youth—
Of him who gently glanced
Awkwardly away.

Slight steaming morning
With sticky sheet sloughed
In a cousin’s home awake
Quick clanging brings hard news
Your grandmother has died
Swift cleavage from a past
As brittle pain sets in—

by KGMom © written c. 1975

And Now, A Word from Our Sponsor

You all know this blog is written by an English teacher--classes start in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS (help).

So, it was with great dismay that I read this story from the BBC: Bad spelling should be accepted.

I sent an email to my daughter with this story attached (she and I share many things including a love of good writing). Her response: This is silly. What about frequently made math errors? Or geography errors?

Oh, I so agree. What's a little mistake in addition? No problem--just consider it a variant. A small geography misplacement? No problem--just a variant. PLEASE.

But, there is still hope. Here's a story about a man who READ the Oxford English Dictionary. For particular enjoyment, note the list of words the man found that were his favorites. Example: gymnologize--to dispute naked, like an Indian philosopher.

Ahhhh--I can relax; there's still hope as long as someone cares enough about words to read the w-h-o-l-e dictionary. All 22,000 pages of it.

Garden Whimsy

Christine asked what garden whimsy we found at the Boateak, so I thought I'd update a view of our garden. Last year, I wrote about our copper garden--I know, it's a bit weird. I am concerned that we not begin to look like those folks who "cultivate" bottle trees. I think we are stopping JUST short of that.

Our newest garden whimsy contributes to the copper collection. It dances in the breeze, sparkling and tinkling softly.

We have wind catchers, light catchers, and sound makers hanging all around. The breeze throughout the day sets the various items in motion, and the sun sparkles through the stained glass.

Of course, every garden needs flowers. We have those in profusion this year--lots of rain and sunshine.

One thing I have done for several years that brings the summer garden almost indoors--I arrange an array of flower pots just outside our glassed-in porch and plant flowers in increasing height. So when we look out the window we see first short bushy plants, then taller plants in profusion.

So, how are all your summer gardens? Full of flowers? Touched by whimsy?