Stove Top and Politics

John Kerry used the phrase "Islamic Muslims" in the debate! He also threw the word "kill" into the mix a few too many times, as in "hunt down and kill the terrorists". (Due process?) That said, Bush's domestic policies aren't working, we should not have raced into Iraq only to let Bin Laden escape (we all know exactly WHY Mr. Oilman attacked Iraq), and I'm angry that the national defecit continues to mortgage my future. Both candidates are idiots for putting the No Child Left Behind act into play-- (Nice concept--if it didn't fly in the face of IDEA, deny critical thinking skills, and act as cover for a huge movement to move public school monies into private schools.)

Enough politics.

Last night I was making Stove Top. Apparently they won a "best pre-packaged stuffing" award. But I have to wonder... is their stuffing the best, or are we just so innundated with it that we think that's how it should taste? Don't get me wrong. I adore Stove Top (except for the little dry onions that don't really blend in) but my dad's fresh stuffing is so good that I have to believe that someone could get a little closer to the real thing.

As a side note, tonight I called in about jury duty for the last time. They don't need me. Thank heavens! I have a test to give tomorrow.

Magic Car Crystals

So if you've seen Napoleon Dynamite, you'll remember the scene where Napoleon is about to try the time machine: Kip is all ready to plug it in and let it rip, when Napoleon stops him and says, "Wait! I almost forgot the crystals!" He dumps some little crystals into a receptacle at the top of the time machine and the rest is history.

My car's name is Mary Jane. She is the best car! She is a replacement for Juanita, my first car. Juanita made me really happy for about nine days, when she stopped on the freeway with a clogged fuel injector. Juanita made me nervous ever after, and she died in a freak accident at 1:00am, getting rear ended and pushed into the car in front in a rainstorm. Both of the other cars sped off. Juanita never started again.

Mary Jane is a Corolla. She runs and runs and runs. She drove all the way to Virginia, then last summer she took me on a fantastic roadtrip to Minnesota. She's had a tire with a small leak that's been giving her the blues, but she handles it like a trooper. She has little stash places for coins. When I lived in Texas, I rarely used them, but here in Virginia where I have to cross a toll bridge every day, the quarter slots are in constant use. That is where the magic crystals come in.

When the Texas quarters came out this summer, I lucked out and got two rolls fresh from the mint! So I reserved the quarter slots by the emergency brake for Texas quarters: a sort of good karma token for Mary Jane since she's a Texas car. This is real magic, not the fake new-agey stuff like crystals. This is four-leaf clover and rabbit's foot material.

Hopefully by next summer, Mary Jane will be able to have the tune-up and new tires that she needs, and then we'll be off again, taking another roadtrip. Driving west, across Tennessee, into the sunset, back home.

Another too-short weekend

I will say right now that if you are looking for sunshine and angels in this post it ain't here. It's 7:07am on a Sunday morning and I have just put in my second load of laundry. Yes, I woke up before 5:30, which is a bad, bad way to have a Sunday morning start. At least I'll have fresh towels when I get in the shower.

Teaching is tough on the system. In addition to doing laundry, I've spent this morning working on a Jeopardy game to review before a test I'm giving to my 3rd years. I still have lesson plans to make for this week. I spent yesterday trying to attack some really dry reading for my reading fundamentals class. The weekly journal on the reading is due in less than 2 weeks, and I need to post some thoughts on it on the discussion board. I hope when I'm a professor I remember that assigning a journal along with a discussion board both on the subject of the reading is redundant.

I admit that the one good thing about the text is that it has little glosses on the side about things to expect when teaching second language learners to read English. That is its redeeming factor, and it will most likely provide the subject matter for each journal entry/discussion posting. It also gives me something to think about on a foreign language teacher level.

Well, laundry needs to be moved and I've got a Jeopardy game to finish.

Never Had It

So my favorite childhood (circa 6th grade) joke is ruined. Here it is:

Q: What do a nun and a bottle of 7-up have in common?

A: Never had it, never will.

And yet this summer a new 7-up appeared. A 7-up to compete with Mountain Dew. A 7-up with caffeine. And it's emerald green.

Emerald green! Thomas's roommate Rob had consumed at least a whole case of it, then last Friday or Saturday I was over and Thomas offered me a can with a glass. I poured it out and Rob just stared--he had previously had no idea of its brilliant sparkling color. I'm not joking when I say emerald!

Flavor? 7-uppy Mountain Dew. Limier to go with the color, maybe? And the label is upside-down. 7-up has been turned on its head.

Apparently the new 7-up is only available on limited release. We have it here, but it's not yet available back home in Idaho--the 7-up company is probably well aware of the backlash a caffeinated version of its caffeine-free flagship might encounter there.

What do I think? I'm just bummed that my joke is ruined. The nuns stand alone.

Formatting Issues

The fact that the long web address in the previous post messed up the look of the blog by shoving column 2 way down below column 1 is driving me crazy! Oh that I were a web designer!

Hero

I've actually been trying to get this post finished and up for about a week. Things have been hectic! I guess if I didn't take extra Arabic classes there would be more time to finish things up, but sometimes you do things for yourself.

At any rate, last weekend I saw Hero, and what a movie it is. A warning if you haven't seen it, I'm going to write liberally, which will most likely include spoilers. You may want to stop here.

Overall, it was one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. The others that come to mind for sheer cinematographic (is that a word?) beauty are Legends of the Fall and Seven Years in Tibet (mind you, I said "cinematographic" beauty, not beauty of fake accents). Both of those were breathtaking, but in a "Wow what great shots of those amazing mountains" kind of way. Hero is different. The beauty is orchestrated and arranged with intentional color. I saw one other Chinese movie several years ago (I wish I could remember its name) that also used flowing, brightly colored silk--in fact it was set in a silk dyer's workshop--and it had fantastic scenes of this beautiful hanging silk, which ultimately went up in flames. At any rate, these three movies are the only ones I can think of that rival the visual beauty of Hero.

(Bonus observation: Possibly the most beautiful thing in the film? The banners of the emperor's army with a red flower followed by a string of stars.)

That said, It's the symbology of the colors that I want to get into, because there is no way that these were arbitrary. Jet Li, the unnamed assassin, first approaches the emperor wearing black. In his story of defeating the other three assassins, they all wear red. Then the emperor's reinterpretation of what may have happened casts the people (and even the library) in blue. The unnamed assassin retorts with what really happened, and everyone is wearing white until within that version Broken Sword tells his story of meeting Snow, in which everyone wears green. It's then back to white as events unfold and word of the unnamed assassin's death reaches Broken Sword and Snow.

Here are some sites I consulted about color symbolism:

http://www.qi-whiz.com/McFengshui/color.html

http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/color2.htm

Therefore, I think it breaks down like this:

Red: prosperity, visibility, energy. This is the version the unnamed assassin would like the emperor to believe about his rise to prominence above the assassins. Here he actually defeats the others and claims to be a faithful servant to the emperor.

Blue: knowledge. As noted, even the library changed colors this time. This is the emperor's best guess as to true events. Blue reigns over the realm of ideas in an etherial manner, which I think would hold true in both western and Chinese color readings. (And by the way, if the banners weren't the most beautiful thing in the movie, people in blue fighting over a mountain lake was.)

White: bare truth, in a way. This was the hardest to pin down, but it seems to symbolize all of the straightforward realities of life: certainly death and a struggle against forces greater than one's own, but also purity: this is the color of actual events and of people acting after their ideals.

Green: new life, harmony, hope, and family. This is the history between Broken Sword and Snow, and a rememberance of a time when the world was wide open to possibility.

Black: harsh reality, and ultimately death. Assassins bringing death wear black. The emperor and his army wear black. Black always spreads across the screen as the ultimate, unescapable fate.

I can't wait to have this one for my DVD collection.

Mumtaz!

Tonight I attended a free Arabic class. Hooray! I had such a good time. This is a beginner's class, which is good because I really don't remember any Arabic at all from my classes 6 years ago. But little by little as we went over the first 5 letters of the alphabet and some basic greetings, I started to remember things, and as I walked out my brain was quickfiring vocabulary. Ok, maybe not quickfiring, but a few synapses were reconnecting, and that's a great feeling.

The Arabic class is my reward for finishing my homework in my other class. Learning a skill like speaking a language is so satisfying--much better than reading about research or falling asleep to crazy made-up case studies. I have such a hard time staying awake with that! But with language learning, I always have something new to test my brain and to stretch my concept of the language. It's tremendous.

Hooray!

Hang the Jury

As though there weren't enough to do anyway.

It's the first month of school and I've been placed on alert for jury duty. When I got the first notice in July, I tried to be excused on the grounds that finding an Italian-speaking substitute teacher would be next to impossible. I also pointed out that I'm working full time and working on a master's degree. The case failed to convince, and I've been assigned.

I therefore spent a large chunk of time creating substitute lesson plans for use in the case that I am called. The problem lies in the fact that this early in the school year, there is just too much to do, and I will really have to re-do substitute lesson plans each week in the case that I am called. I don't want to be called, but it miffs me terribly that all of this planning is for nothing. How dare they place one's life in limbo!

Ok, so there are worse things that could happen than jury duty. But I still hold that teachers are serving the community better in class than they are in a courtroom, so at least during the school year, leave us off of jury duty, and we'll do our best to keep the students out of the courtroom.

Back to "Normal"

School has started. All of the kiddies are back, syllabi are distributed, and now it's just how many months to June 22? Actually, it's funny how normal it all feels. Even though I have made an art of sleeping in all summer, it just feels natural to be back with the students. The first couple of days back are the best! It is so great to see the students you know, and the new haircuts, and the new glasses, and they are so happy to see their friends again, and anticipation is high. As a teacher, it is so hard to hit the right tone--to inspire both excellence and the fear of God on the same day, and to suppress my delight when students walk back in the room after a summer off. As icing on the cake, my homeroom students are finally juniors, which means they have learned to sit still. Hooray!

The school board implemented a new dress code this year: the students have to tuck their shirts in. So we spend the whole morning yelling "Tuck it in! Tuck it in!" before they go to class, then in class we say "Tuck it in! Tuck it in!" and between classes we yell "Tuck it in! Tuck it in!" and they think they can untuck the second they're out of sight. I am so hoarse. Hopefully my voice will heal and I'll be able to speak loudly all day very soon. The second the students are gone, I pull out big bunches of grapes for lunch because they are little bombs of moisture to soothe the throat.

In all, it looks like it will be a good year. My classes are smaller than I would have them, but it looks like a good year nonetheless.

Burning The Man, or Not-So-Great White

Amilynne and I were on the phone last night.

She called just as I finished watching Lonely Planet. It was a tour of the Southwest with Justine Shapiro. Justine is a picky, whiny traveler. I would hate to meet her. I would probably punch her in her turned-up nose. In general, I don't like Lonely Planet anyway, because the travelers try too much to be cool and cutting edge. Really, their destinations can do that for them. But they blow it. For example, we had to watch a little montage of Justine trying on motorcycle clothes for the new bike she just bought (and which she would ditch for a junker car in the next town. Are we shocked when the car goes into the shop? No.)

At any rate, Justine's last stop was the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. She passed through Reno on the way. I had to wonder whether Amilynne had ever gone to Burning Man. Just then, the phone rang. Amilynne.

I asked her if she had been to Burning Man. She says she has been invited to go next year. She also said that it is going on right now. I had been unaware. Apparently, happy hippies have been coming in and out of the store where she works all week, buying gallons and gallons of water before going north to the desert. I observed that the whole thing seems to be quite hedonistic. "Yes," she said, "but you should see how happy these hippies are." They get to burn The Man. They get to be happy and free for a week. Yippee.

Then she dropped the bomb. She told me that tickets cost $200. Yikes! That seemed very wrong to me. $200? Yes. For the cost of the fire insurance.

"No way!" I said. "No way! $200? To be naked in the desert for a week? No way!"

"Yes," said Amilynne, "for the fire insurance. Look on burningman.com."

http://www.burningman.com/

"No way!" I still said, "Fire insurance doesn't cost that much! Bands do pyrotechnics all the time and tickets only cost $50!"

"Well, Great White obviously didn't buy enough insurance." Amilynne can always tie in Great White. She then proceeded to speculate that the whole Great White disaster may have simply been a publicity stunt. One never knows...

After a moment, a light came on. I had found the Truth. "There's some old hippie getting really rich off of Burning Man!" I proclaimed.

"No! Hippies are happy! They are poor!" Amilynne protested.

"Not necessarily old hippies. Old hippies might be happy, but maybe it's because they're rich! Maybe it's because they're THE MAN!"

"No! No!"

"Yes. Tickets at $200 a pop? It's not like you start getting in free once they've paid for the fire insurance." No, some old hippie is definitely out there getting dreadfully rich off of this festival, and loving every minute of it. In fact, in writing this post, I checked burningman.com, and Lo and Behold, they are warning that tickets at the gate of the festival start at $350.

Amilynne argued that tickets don't start at $200 in the beginning. Advanced ticket sales are much lower, but she couldn't tell me how much. I just find it disturbing and a bit odd that this festival of "community" would take such a bite. Yikes! Burning man is a sham!

School with a vengeance

School hasn't even started yet and I'm already bone tired! Hear me groan: ugggggggg! At least we got out of some staff development today (thanks to all of the rain from Gaston: for those who didn't hear, areas here got up to 10 inches of rain in an afternoon), so I had an entire day to work on my room. I took down all of the art history decorations and prepared to replace it with Italian. Tonight I went through more of my pictures and I have a LOAD of stuff to stick to the wall. Hopefully it's enough.

And speaking of Gaston: that was freaky! All of that rain, and the canal behind my house filling up. The greatest thing was that my hurricane frog came back! During Isabel, I brought all of my plants indoors. The morning after, something was moving in the rosemary. I thought it was a mouse. I moved it outside, and a little frog came hopping out. This time, when I went out to shake some rain off of the plants and see how they were holding up, my little frog jumped out again. Now, of course I cannot know for a fact that this frog is the same frog, but I am just convinced that it is. And thankfully my ground was high enough for both of us. Now if Frances will just steer clear...

Sadly, Summer's Ending

Today was the end.

For the next 10 months, I'll be working. Boo Hoo! I love summer vacation! I completely wasted the day by going to see two movies: The Village and Garden State. I had seen The Village before (totally worth multiple viewings). I was still jumping at all appropriate parts; it still left me decimated in tears at the end. As far as I can tell, the film is technically perfect (tight framing, fantastic use of color, spine-tingling sound effects), but the storyline and the themes are what resonate to me. The story is just so human--wanting so much for the ones you love--and the built in disappointments that furrow the path of hope. And yet you want to hope; you want so much to hope; in the face of all that's ugly or hard you hope. Aren't we all sometimes just blind readheads (terribly cute) with enough tenacity to get through anything ... or don't we at least want to be.

Garden State had some of the same. It was also very good--not perfect and not by any means a masterpiece, but solid. (Do I sound like a nut in wondering if drug use is as commonplace as that show made it? No wonder one of my students was so incredulous and certain that I had never lived when I told her that I had never smoked pot.) Natalie Portman really came into her own here, breathing life into my flatlining interest (which is exactly what her role is designed to do; she did it stunningly). Well, this one is pretty new out, and I would hate to spoil plot. But let me note how much I liked the cinematography--effective framing, long shots, and of course whatever you call it when you lock on one person and let the world speed around him. Isn't that the exact equivalent of being absorbed in your own tragedy or of spacing off.

Fantastic.

Soon I hope to post something about some of the reading I've done this summer. But I think I'll spend the rest of the evening working on Il nome della rosa, which I fear I will not finish before school starts Monday.

Water from home

I just picked up my water bottle for a drink: the water bottle that I filled up at home and carried back: the water bottle that was still full. What a difference ... kind of the same difference as between 2% and skim milk *seriously*. In the same sector of the tongue.

I miss home.

AAAACK to Party Politics

Last night, instead of the Olympics (I should be shamed after the last post) I watched CSPAN. They were showing all of these insane ads going back and forth between the Bush and Kerry camps regarding Kerry's testimony before the senate in 1971. Then they showed what remains of the testimony in audio or video format.

Before I go further, let me say that this race is driving me nuts. I hate Bush! He is an arrogant right-wing bumbling fool! If I see him smile and throw his head back like a cocky jerk one more time I'll scream! I also hate Kerry! Could the Democrats have found anywhere a better chamelion to run for office? What does he stand for? He has voted for all of the same things that I hate Bush for (most notably, the No Child Left Behind Act)! It appears to me that in order to keep his job Senator Kerry has gone with the flow at every turn. Bush must be removed from office, but I dread seeing this opportunist take his place.

At any rate, I must say that anyone who takes offense at what Kerry said in his testimony would also have to be taking offense at the whistleblowers who said 'something is wrong here' at Abu Ghraib. These are the same atrocities. For anyone who is interested, here is the link to the complete testimony on CSPAN:

http://www.c-span.org/2004vote/jkerrytestimony.asp

(I must add as an aside that it was interesting to note how some of Kerry's speech patterns have changed since 1971. He has definitely tamed some of his vowel sounds to sound a bit more everyman! A lesson Bush could use before he prompts us to rush into another stage of the war on terra.)

Hooray for the Olympics

Yes, I have spent too much time watching the Olympics, but I feel a twinge of guilt whenever I make a move to turn them off. There they are, all of these fantastic, dedicated people, with a shot at supreme greatness, and I have better things to do than watch? I think not! What kind of person would I be if I had not watched Rulon Gardner leave his shoes in the center ring of the wrestling mat? Because his tears spoke of leaving a dream after it has exploded into something great and of a walking away from years of work because the accomplishment is complete. Who are any of us to miss that moment?

The other aspect that makes the games a must-see, though, is the surreal realization of "People get medals for that?" Example: Amilynne was just telling me that her favorite event to watch so far has been Women's Trampoline. Because the action is basically "Boing..flipflipflipflipflipflipflip..Boing..flipflip flipflipflipflip..STOP" That was the key factor--the stopping. Apparently part of the skill is in being able to stop without making lots of little bounces. That goes contrary to physics as I understand it.

Which explains a lot about why I am not an Olympian.

Throwing down Amilynne and her claims

On our first night back in Idaho Falls, Amilynne and I decided it was time to see who could win at arm wrestling. So we plopped down on the floor and locked fists. I got off to a quick start, and then we held . . . and held . . . until she started to cough, at which point I threw her down. Now. She claims that this was cheating. I do not. She is also now claiming that this cancels out the time she cheated at Cranium in Dallas. Absolutely not. That was blatant cheating. One does not pick a card, decide that that card is too easy for the opposing team, then shuffle it into the middle of the deck and pick a new card. All of which has nothing whatsoever to do with throwing down a coughing opponent while arm wrestling. Nice try, Amilynne.