on Work and More

All right, for anyone who has been in suspense since my last post, I decided to take the summer job. Which we all knew I would do. There's only one word for me. Spell it with me:

S-U-C-K-E-R.

When I have been stealing time from the piles of work that surround me and make me feel guilty for doing anything but pay attention to said piles of work, I've actually had some lovely little things happen in the past couple of months. Dad came to visit for spring break, and although I made him sit around while I worked for much too much of the time, we did fit in some fun things, including catching a show of orchids (which Dad thoroughly enjoyed, especially as they reminded him of the beautiful island of Zamboanga in the Philippines) and seeing the National Cathedral, and driving out to Assateague Island to see the wild ponies, or the "Fat Salt Ponies" as Amilynne has named them. (She apparently saw a special on them which stated that they are plump because of the extra dose of salt in their sea-island diets.) They were really cool. Dad also got his first visit to the Atlantic. Here are the pictures to say the thousands of words I'm too impatient to write:

In other news, I also discovered the amazing poetry of Mary Oliver. The poems are the most real and powerful and spiritual descriptions of the natural world that I think I have ever encountered--I can only read so many before it is too much and I have to set it down for fear of my soul bursting out of my skin. So I'm reading the books slowly, and re-reading poems several times before moving on. Amilynne is mad at me because I told her I think Mary Oliver might be my poet (meaning Billy Collins may have been bumped from the top spot). I don't know. I love them both, but I can't argue with the power of this. Here for your pleasure, a link to several of her poems.

The joy is that this has me writing poetry again. (Yes, Billy Collins, I know that doesn't necessarily please you.) Not that any of it is good yet. But if I'm not writing it's never going to get any better, and it feels good to be in a creative moment, because I've been out of one for a long time.

And it feels good to shake my little fist at the piles of work and say, "Yes! But first this!"

So I'm still up

and it's almost 1:00. I should really be asleep, but I'm not.

I'm trying to decide what to do with my summer. I had declared that this would be the summer of peace, and that really I would refuse anything that came my way. Now I'm faced with the opportunity to teach a class at the university and I am torn. On the one hand, who turns down decent income for a 5-week stint? On the other hand, I had promised myself a summer off. I keep going back and forth on it. There are a lot of things that normal people do to take care of themselves and their interests that I just haven't had a chance to do since September 2003. Not to mention that I have side projects (stained glass, painting, books to read) that could easily fill ten summers. I haven't been really truly creative since I started my master's and I really need to give that an outlet. Anyway, I have to decide by Friday. And I am absolutely torn.

And losing sleep.

on Sting

One of the times I didn't get to see Sting.

I could go for a Police reunion tour, but you know that for me it would be all about Sting.

Yes, I caught the Police opening the Grammys tonight. I didn't know what I would think. And then Sting started to sing and it was good. I didn't care much who was playing the other instruments, it was all about Sting.

You see, once upon a time, a long time ago, when I was 14 or so, my cousin came to visit, and she had a copy of Dream of the Blue Turtles. We hung out and I had a listen, and late that night, long after she had gone to bed, I was still listening. The lyrics were profound: they spoke to my greatest fears, appealed to my growing sense of social justice, and enchanted me with their poetry and with descriptions of places I hadn't yet imagined. The music and the voice were rough and smooth and played tricks I wasn't expecting. I greeted Sting's pursuant albums with the same mix of awe and adoration. Hours have been spent just listening. Tears have fallen. Ultimate Sting mix tapes have been made. I spent years waiting for the chance to see Sting on tour - but whenever he came near I was elsewhere. When I finally got to see Sting perform live, my heart just about burst. I could not stop the tears that welled over the whole time he was on stage. OK, so I mist up easily, but that was extreme.

Hearing him sing the earlier Police stuff is fantastic. (Hearing him sing the ABC song would be fantastic.) Do I care about the Police reuniting? Only as a vehicle for another tour with Sting, another chance to have all of that live emotion and greatness blow me off my feet again.

It's an architecture kind of day

I'm vibing with buildings. Found a couple of cool things. I was reading about the current soccer moratorium in Italy (national crisis!) and the article referred to "Palazzo Chigi" as an entity - Ha! *Click* went my brain and off I went to find a picture of seat of Italian government. Here is Wikipedia's version:



I also came across an article on Time.com referring to the top 150 examples of American architecture as picked by the American public. The list is here. Hmmm. The Empire State Building is definitely not my favorite (for old skyscrapers, the Chrystler building is cooler), and the White House is not nearly as cool as the Capitol. But what a fun list to go over and look at. I haven't decided yet which is my favorite. I'll let you know when I do.

Bozzetto's Take on Italy

Click here or on the title to experience the truth about life in Italy, as compared to the rest of Europe.

I split my sides. The bus thing is SO true.

Where is my Robot?

I've been home for two weeks now and the house is still a mess and I'm still behind in what I need to get done for work and I went to do laundry and of course the facilities are down so I've got to go to the laundromat. And I would just like to ask: Where is my Robot? Where? They just had the big tecchie show and woo-hoo there's a new cellphone coming out (hello - I've had a cellphone for a LONG TIME now and the one I've got lets me phone. It's a phone. That's all I need there.) but why did no one unveil a robot? A robot to keep the house clean and calculate the balance in the checking account (and do my correcting) and run to the laundromat when the laundry facilities are down. That is the invention I would buy into and make room for...a personal assistant I would only have to buy once.

Did you see the Electric Grandmother when you were a kid? She should be the prototype. She knew when to make chocolate chip cookies and she handled the house with ease. I would not be like the little girl in the story. I would embrace my Electric Grandmother with thankfulness. I would make sure she had a nice rocking chair for when she was plugged in every night and I would pay the electric bill with a song in my heart.

So please, Steve Jobs, take your iPhone and go back to the drawing board. I'd like to see the first issue of an electric grandmother announced at the conference next year. Put all of your people on it, maybe team up with the folks at MIT. But hurry, please. My to-do list isn't getting any shorter.

Resolved: Must Blog in 2007

Here I am at my computer making "lesson plans." Right. Unfortunately, I'm still running on mountain time, which means my body thinks there is plenty of time to get the work done and still get some sleep before work in the morning. And that is why procrastinators should only travel in a westerly direction... might miss some days entirely, but it will always feel like sleeping in!

Anyway, I suddenly remembered that I used to blog. And that I enjoyed it. And it really fits in with my one and only (2-part) resolution for the new year: to take better care of myself and enjoy life.

So Hooray! Hooray! Last semester is over. I graduated, taught my first college class, and worked full-time to boot. I am SO happy not to be taking a class this semester. I remember how happy I was to take my first class for certification--it felt so good to be back in school--how things change! I am so ready not to be taking classes for a while!

Anyway, so the holidays were good, if brief. Lots of playtime with Junior, the whole family was at Dad's and we had a pretty good time. Junior is the cutest child in the whole world ever. He loves to tell stories--I do wish I knew what he was saying--but it is so fun to listen to him just talking away.

And now it's back to work until the end of June. Far away, but we'll make it.

Greetings from the Hermitage

I know that I have completely disappeared from the world. What craziness is everywhere! But I am involved in an epic struggle between success and failure--Will I graduate in December? The answer lies very much in how much I can cram into the next week.

And in spite of it, here I am. Here's why:

I work better with something else going on. Music, usually, although PBS also can work very well. It keeps one section of my brain from going completely batty bored with whatever is going on that I must pay attention to. For example, the last couple of nights they've been showing a documentary on Benjamin Franklin, which I believe is by Ken Burns. Fascinating, and a nice story, and I can generally stay on track and be very productive with something like this on.

Until tonight they showed a documentary called "A Touch of Greatnes" about an educator named Albert Cullum. Basically he had elementary school students in the late 50's-early 60's debating the merits of Shakespeare, Shaw, and Sophocles, learning geography, and doing all kinds of crazy learning. Man I wish I could have had him for a teacher! One student's vocabulary notebook had 290+ words for the year and she actually learned to use them because the whole class was this wriggling organism of collective learning. I got so wrapped into this--I was sitting on the edge of the ottoman to be closer to the screen to drink it all in. And the thing was, it was obvious that Mr. Cullum was having the best time of anyone. That is the teacher I want to be--the one having a jolly old time in the learning atmosphere I've created. The one who figures out how to play our way to a better understanding. Anyway, now I'm all fired up and I've gotten some portfolio work done, and I'd better get back to it because I have miles to go before I sleep.

Surprise!

So I was out watering the garden, when something jumped out of the chives.

Yes, it's a praying mantis. I have never seen a real one before. At first it took me a second - maybe it was a walking stick? Because it's brown and I thought praying mantises were green? Or maybe they are and this is really some kind of walking stick or walking leaf or something. Anyway. Moot point. The deal is, I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before. It was BIG! So I ran inside and grabbed my camera, and now you see the result.

Since we're at it, here is my rosemary. Isn't it beautiful?

And yes, I do think it likes having the gnome there. And so does the laurel plant (it has two of them).

Fun in the garden. Fun for everyone.

Amilynne's Idea

Amilynne says the Mona Lisa should go to the winners. Buon idea! Of course, she was going to award pasta to the French if they won. I don't know what Italy would have done without pasta for 4 years. And honestly, I don't know what the French would have done with it. Good thing the match turned out the way it did.

A Brilliant Italian Win

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Guess who is putting a gigantic soccer ball on the door of her classroom for the next 4 years??? Forza! Forza! Forza!

(And shame on Thomas for texting me "Vive la France" during the game. Vive les headbutters what?)

You know, though, that game really did have me on edge - I must have been really holding my breath because the second Italy won and I started jumping up and down and whooping and cheering I about toppled over! This wave of quasi-unconsciousness hit, I got terribly dizzy, and I had to sit down a second. I seriously feared I would faint. Wouldn't that have been priceless--knocked out by Italy's championship run. Ha!

I'm also naming Andrea Pirlo player of the game. Of course, Gennaro Gattuso was also brilliant - talk about being everywhere at once, and Gianluigi Buffon is goalkeeper extraordinaire. (Oh my goodness - when he knocked Zidane's shot over the goal - fabulous!) But to me, Pirlo was just always there putting on the heat and setting up opportunities. He also shot in the first penalty shot after overtime. Forza!

(I've linked the title of this posting to the FIFA highlights, as long as they will remain posted. Enjoy.)

Crazy4Calcio

I woke up this morning with visions of Italy winning the World Cup dancing in my head. So all I can really say is:

FORZA AZZURRI!!!

Elementary, My Dear

So I'm a week into the internship at the elementary school. I'm tutoring this cute little kid and having a ball. I did a reading interest survey with him where I was naming different topics that books could be on and he was grading them - an A meant he was really interested in it, an F meant he wasn't interested. So I was going down the list and he was giving lots of As and Fs and some Cs and a couple of Ds and I got to "love" and he said "A+!" And I kind of chuckled to myself because I'm used to teenagers (and to myself, and to some of my friends) who would rather die than admit that love is any more than an F--. He was so cute! Then, near the end of the list, I got to "family" and he said "A+ a hundred!" Computers got "A+ a hundred!" too.

Anyway, I could just eat this kid up. He was sleepy today from fireworks last night and he kept putting his head down and making snoring noises. Especially when I was asking him to do hard things. It's just fun that he's young enough that nutty is OK and playing is an acceptable free-time activity.

School

The Boy got out of school last week, Amilynne got out of school this week, and I have two more weeks of school.

The seniors who started at the high school the same time as me graduated this week. I admit I will miss the class of 2006. The students I worked with, especially the ones who were still studying Italian this year, are great people with fun personalities. I hope I get the chance to see what some of them become.

But for now, I'm just pushing for summer vacation. It will not get here soon enough.

"...speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world..."

Imagine my joy when I found this one on Microsoft clipart:

The funny thing is that they had it listed under Italy, Milan, and Stained Glass Windows, but not under Dante.

I flipped when I found it. I went back to Purgatorio XXVIII to read about Matilda. How fantastic it all is.

The fourth years started Dante this week. Joy, joy, joy.

Spring Break Review

When I went to Texas and Louisiana last month for spring break, I bought a snazzy little digital camera. Hooray! I've got to say--it has been way too long in coming. But I had decided the week before that it would be my tax refund treat this year, and then once I got on the plane to Texas I realized that I had forgotten my regular camera (which, by the way, is eleven years old and has produced pictures with a hairline crack in the top of the frame for at least half of those years), so once I got to Texas I hit Best Buy and hooray! I'm the happy owner of a cool new camera.

Of course, once I got home, it has taken a month for me to install the software so I can download pictures to my computer.

But now I have, and now they're there, and now I can post a picture or two (or four) from the trip.

Here is the camera's first picture. A close-up of the shepherd's pie will be a feature on the new Casseroles...Hella Good! website that Amilynne and I are going to build. But here is the full picture, with my splendid friends Hunada, Daryl, and Elizabeth, who love me enough to get together for shepherd's pie when I come to Texas:

Next, here is cool Marianne at Oak Alley, the fabulous old plantation we visited between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The trees are three hundred years old. And can I say how fantastic it was to see Marianne? We hadn't visited for ages, not since she got married four years ago. Which seems almost as long as the trees are old.

On my way back from Louisiana, I had an otherworldish experience. This is where I found myself:

Anyway, when I got back to Texas, Elizabeth and I went to the Botanical gardens and there we beheld something you would ONLY see in the Lone Star State:

Little chica is practicing her pose. Yikes!

And I just have to add this picture because it is so cool to have a camera that can do it:

See the dew? I love my new camera!

But not as much as I love my friends! :D

On Libraries and Languages

On Libraries:

Last night I went to a university Italian faculty party to get to know the faculty and just to enjoy being like an Italian for an evening. It was fantastic!!! I just don't get to use Italian conversationally very often (and that shows--I found myself switching to English too often last night when I was talking--anyway, it was a LOVELY evening, I brought one of my students along and I think he enjoyed it a lot too, and it was just great.

Anyway, the party's hostess LOVES books. She is a book collector. She has such a collection that she has built a separate library the size of a small house for herself, and it is all shelves and books. And get this. I was randomly exploring one aisle when my eyes fell on a book by my great grandmother. I just died. I mean, it was never the most popular or well-known book (although my dad told me last night that when it was published it did win an award in California for being the best new book for jr. high students). That was really cool.

On Languages:

Last week W made some idiotic remark about how the national anthem should only be sung in English. Apparently someone countered with a claim that W did, in fact, sing the national anthem in Spanish when he was on the campaign trail. Scott McLellan, the white house spokesman on his way out, retorted by saying that the claim is "absurd" because "He's not that good with his Spanish."

Give me a break!!!

Every semester I teach my students to memorize a poem in Italian that they don't necessarily understand and that they probably couldn't read flawlessly if handed for the first time. Almost all of them have it nicely memorized in 4 months. Learning to say things you don't understand is a big chunk of learning a language! I forwarded the news story to friends and family with this attached:

"What idiocy. We all know that you don't have to know a language well to sing in it, you just need some coaching (coaching that I think would be availble to someone courting the Latino vote!)"

To which Amilynne replied:

foo nee coe lee foo nee coe la foo nee coe lee foo nee coe LAAAAA, yamma yamma yo foo nee coe lee foo nee coe la HEY!

Which is close enough.

Nice to know that Scott McLellan thinks the President is about as smart as my least motivated urban high school students.

Homies

I'm ripping another picture off of the Kiddo's website. This one cracked me up.

Because I'm still in Junior High

I have not changed at all. I am essentially the same teenager I have always been.

I've added two new albums to my collection this week: Future Retro (Great Alternative Anthems of the 80's Souped Up With Dance Beats) (e.g. Crystal Method does Bizarre Love Triangle) and Morrissey's new Ringleader of the Tormentors. And I have to say that both are very good. No one can orchestrate an opening like Morrissey can, no one at all.

On top of that, I have worked late late late this week, and how do I keep going? Just a simple mix of Morrissey and Midnight Oil, please. (Dear reader, you do know that Blue Sky Mining is Midnight Oil's greatest album, followed closely by Earth and Sun and Moon? They're not just Beds are Burning, no, no, no.) Since we're doing finest albums, Morrissey's is, of course, Viva Hate.

(Earth and Sun and Moon is so good on headphones walking through a forest.)

Which begs a discussion on picking favorites. Is the favorite the song you hear first off, identify with, and claim, love at first sight, whole-hearted and blindly? Or is the favorite the song that etches itself slowly into your soul, hook by hook, riff by riff, until it is part of the fabric of your soul and tearing it out would cause a loss of self?

Are we talking about love now? or worship? Do we leave particles of our souls with the things we love in exchange for the memories? I once worked for a man who owned a very nice shop, and he claimed that if you go into a store, and find something you like, and pick it up and walk around with it, feeling it and adoring it, and then put it back, someone will come find it and buy it because of the piece of you that rubbed off on it. Interesting, but when I think of the things I put back and regret having put back (the jewelrey box in Genova, for starters) I wonder if what I'm missing is the piece of me that stayed with it when I walked away.

How much worse to leave our friends! Our favorites! The ones to whom we have given large chunks of our souls (please don't lose them), who finish our thoughts and travel our same paths not nearly long enough --

And so we capture what we can: photographs, songs; and we write notes and letters; and all the while it's more of our souls that we are leaving on these treasures -

And our yearbooks say "Stay Sweet!" and "Friends Forever!"

And somewhere we are. Because they are in us and we are in them,

because we're still in junior high.

The Worst Driver On Earth

On my way to the bank yesterday, I saw first-hand what happens when the biggest idiot in the world gets behind the wheel of a car. I was at a light waiting for opposing traffic to clear so I could make a left-hand turn, when suddenly this little car zips completely around me and makes a U-turn. I had to slam on the breaks. Since I was in the turning lane, it means that this guy entered the intersection from a "go straight only" lane, but instead he took the whole intersection as his own and zoomed completely around me. My heart stopped as he roared into my view (I had been watching oncoming traffic looking for an opportunity to turn). I slammed on the horn, but it took just a second as I registered the shock, so he was already driving away and probably didn't see me flip him off.

The diagram of what happened is above. I am the cute gold car, my path is in blue, because I stayed so relatively calm throughout the experience. (HA! But at least I was cool enough that I didn't plow into him!) The idiot is driving the teal car. His path is hot pink because he thinks his driving makes him hot stuff. I think it makes him the world's biggest idiot.