It's All-About-Me Day!

...to me! I am 37 today.

Forza Italia! (World Cup images)

Vincono Gli Azzurri!!

Congratulazioni ai campioni del mondo!

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Mais, pourquoi, Zizou?!?

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Acho que não. Brasil va embora...

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Die nächste große Hoffnung für Amerika?

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No más...

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I can't wait!!

World Cup Takes To The Links...

For those of you who don't know, I have been actively following the World Cup of Soccer. Thanks to the Spanish language network Univision, I have able to watch (or record) nearly all of the games live. Apart from being able to passionately engage in my one true fanatacism related to sports, I get to experience the games in a language--and from the point of view of a culture--that is as as wild about the sport, and this event, as I am.

If you've ever watched international soccer, especially if it's broadcast on a foreign language network, you will agree that there is a more intense energy to the way it is announced than you'll ever hear on ABC or ESPN. Announcers are enthusiastic in describing even the most mundane action and, whenever the ball gets close to the goal, the tone of the announcers rises and becomes more fervent, rising to a crescendo as the player takes the shot and, if he scores, you'll hear the most recognizable sound in international sports simultaneously on televisions and on the lips of viewers in living rooms, restaurants, bars and offices all over the world...

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!

SiSi, my four-year old daughter, has been an eager student of soccer during this time. She has learned a great deal about soccer as a sport, and has been taken a real interest in watching the World Cup on television. She asks about why the players fall down so much and pretend to be hurt ("Did he get a pain in his leg THIS time, Papa?") and knows how to recognize when the ball goes out of bounds, what happens during a penalty kick and what to shout when the ball goes into the net...

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!

This weekend, the U.S. Women's Open golf tournament was held in Newport, Rhode Island. The final round of this event was broadcast on network television, and Wifeness had the television tuned to it as background noise while she napped on the couch. She wasn't feeling well that day. Both girls were home, and had been playing in their bedroom. SiSi came into the living room to watch some TV just as Annika Sorenstam sank the 12th hole for birdie. She watched this happen and did what she thought she was supposed to do. She raised her arms and, in true World Cup style, announced...

The old car goes out...

I posted some time ago about the fact that my truck was on its way out. Well, she went and, in true Wayfarer House fashion, did it with style and in a way that you would never have figured.

It all happened on the last day of school for me. June 30th. A beautiful day, and a productive one! My grades were in. My classroom was clean and packed (they were due to clean out the space to do some construction). My truck was loaded to the gills with the stuff that comes home for the summer (Mbungo, plants, calendar, videos, texts and work to review, my podium that needs to have the top rebuilt, etc.), and I was thinking about what to make for supper that night as I pulled off the highway up the ramp to the stop sign to get on the back road that takes me to home. That's when she stalled.

I said, "That's odd. I haven't stalled my truck in years." Then I tried to start her again. She wanted to. She really wanted to, but the smoke started billowing from under the hood and I just knew this was the end. The thing was, I was in a tricky place. This off ramp has a little bit of a bend to it that makes it tough to see too far ahead as your approaching the stop sign. It was a busy traffic day and lots of people were exiting from the highway waaaaaay too fast. Not a good place to die, baby.

I quickly call AAA. I tell them in a calm, but urgent voice where I am, and that I'd appreciate it if they'd get someone here a little faster than they normally do since my truck's fat ass is hanging out in the street about to be chopped off by a logging truck. They say, "Mr. Wayfarer, did you know that your membership expires today?"

I borrowed a phrase from Chili. "You're kidding me, right?" Is it STILL good? Yeah? Then how about you get the *&@#% tow truck out here! I'll worry about where the check went when I'm not about to be run over, OK?

Then comes the fun part. Trying to communicate where I am.

"I'm on the northbound off-ramp, at the end, by the stop sign."

"OK. And which direction are you going?" (Can you tell where this is headed?)

The entire ten minute conversation went like this. Eventually, I just told her to send the truck to a nearby truckstop and I'd direct him by cell phone if he was as feebleminded as she was (I was more polite on the phone. Can you imagine the karmic debt that would come from saying that to her?). Once I was off the phone with her, I called 911. To my incredible surprise, they were aware that I was stranded and had already dispatched someone to investigate. He arrived within a minute after I had spoken with dispatch. The best part? He even called the tow company and told them to get a move on! The tow truck arrived in less than 10 minutes after that!

Now that's prompt service, people!

Wifeness and I stripped my truck of all it's personal items why it lay bleeding oil in the dealership parking lot. Now, I don't have personal attachments to my vehicles, but this process always seems a little sad to me. Sort of like moving out of an apartment, I get this small amount of melancholy, but without the anticipation of moving to a new place. When I closed the driver's side door for the last time, I could not help but pat her on the hood and say thank you for the 10 good years and 120,000 she had served so well.

My next car will not be her equal.

PS: I had the garage to a check under the hood just to determine cause of death. It was not, they said, anything that was wrong with it from before. Rather, an entirely new and undiagnosable problem was the culprit that, much like everything else that was wrong, would cost some $750 to fix.

How many $750 problems can one car have before it dies? The answer: 4.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth…and Legos!

Chili introduced me to Fussy’s concept of using action figures to demonstrate Ashtanga Yoga. Check it out! [HERE] They are hilarious!

Now, I would like to present to you the Holy Bible, told via Legos--[HERE]. Irishbroadsword gets the credit for sharing this with me, and kudos go out to The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith! This is what creativity in storytelling is all about! It absolutely cracked me up to read this. I nearly spewed coffee out my nose when I read his version of Genesis, chapter 4. Wonderful! What do you think?

Vanx, does this count as an individual creation of the Last Supper?

World Cup and Action Research...

They broke my heart.

It hurts me as an American that our nation did not field a competitive team for the world’s most prestigious event in the world’s most popular sport. I don’t care that they don’t win it. Frankly, I like it that most of the world is better than we are. It irritates me that we didn’t show up to play. It’s no wonder the U.S. is ridiculed by the rest of the world. We’re a superpower. We can launch rockets. We use 97% of the world’s resources. Yet, we can’t find, in a nation of nearly 300 million people, 23 who can want to play this game consistently as well as any other nation in this half of the world. Even Trinidad & Tobago, which has a population of only 34 people, have done better in Germany than we have. They came to PLAY. We came to GET OUR ASSES BEAT.

Now I’m pulling for Ghana. They came to play, and showed they’ve got the stuff. They play Brazil next. They probably won’t win, but they’ll put it all out there. That deserves some support. Go Ghana!!

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Countdown to M.Ed. -- 3 courses.

The next one is a research class. Action research. Sounds all superhero-y doesn’t it?

Action research is the kind done to directly affect current practice (in my case, teaching practice), so it’s supposed to have something to do with what I’m doing in my classroom currently. Well, not currently, since I’m essentially done teaching until September, but you get the idea.

The thing is, I’m torn. I have things relative to my current teaching I could explore, but I’ve been so thoroughly disgusted with my teaching this year that examining it objectively is going to be tough.

I’ll admit it. It’s been a tough year. Being gone the first two months of the year. Trying to make up for that lost time while still trying to figure out which way is up. Graduate school kicking back in. No Child Left Behind.

I feel like my students haven’t learned a god. damn. thing.

Worse than that is the nagging, gnawing feeling I have that I didn’t teach them anything. They went through this whole year and got nothing worthwhile from me, and when I look back at why, there is so little that I can honestly say I could have done differently. I don’t have any problem taking responsibility for my teaching, and I’ll own up to the fact that I made decisions that meant my teaching was less inspired because I had other things to do, but it happened the way it had to. I’m not happy with it, though, and I’m carrying a little resentment at having to make decisions that don’t support the part of my life that really nourishes my soul.

Maybe that’s what I should research: The effect of real world bullshit on veteran World Language teachers.

Actually, I’m debating whether I want to make the effort to research teaching practices in schools and programs that work primarily with foster/adopted children. The Landmark Community School project is investigating whether this is a viable demographic to serve, and it makes sense to get the lay of the land, to see what people are already doing and whether it’s effective. It’s a lot of work, though. I’m not sure my constitution is going to handle it. Maybe I just need some coffee.

A moment of silence, please...

My truck has just been diagnosed with a terminal “illness”. Her life’s blood is slowly leaking away. She is 15 years old, with nearly 175,000 miles, so I knew this would happen sooner or later, but I was hoping to get enough time out of her so that we might enjoy some time without a car payment (Wifeness’ van will be paid off in a few months). This vehicle has been very good to me and my family, and I will mourn its loss.

There just wasn’t any sense in putting the money into it at this point. Her body and frame is rusting out (old age is a bitch!) and, in addition to the valve seal job she would need, she’s well overdue for a new clutch, a power steering pump, new shocks and a new seal for her sunroof. All together, it just wouldn’t be worth it.

So, while she’s on her way out, the process of finding a suitable replacement begins. Callous, I know, but she’s been gracious enough to give me time so I want to put it to good use. Who knows how much longer we’ll have, after all.

Wifeness and I have talked about what qualities my “new” trusty steed should possess. Please consider the following as an example of the intrinsic differences between what we each value in a vehicle.

Wifeness

• Must have a back seat (adequate for carrying two children and car seats)
• Must be enjoyable for her to drive (she HATES driving my truck!)
• Should have airbags, antilock brakes and appropriate safety features (“You may NOT die on me!”)
• Should be cost-effective to drive and maintain (25+ mpg would be great!).
• Should not be ugly

Me

• Must be a stick-shift (How can I drive like Ayrton Senna with an automatic??)
• Must have storage adequate to transport one soccer team’s worth of equipment (or the equivalent in fast-food wrappers)
• Should have a sunroof (since I’ll never own a convertible…)
• Should be able to drive around in the snow and mud without sniveling and WITHOUT GETTING STUCK!! (I don’t go off road a lot but, when I do, I damn sure expect to be invincible!)
• Must be able to properly and easily carry a 4x8 sheet of plywood and a canoe (but not necessarily at the same time).

I put it to you, fellow bloggers!

What kind of vehicle, in your own estimation, matches these criteria the best? Do you own one? Do you like it? Your opinions and experience are, of course, muchly appreciated.

The Rewards of my Profession...

On Thursday last, I got to see a production of La Casa de Bernarda Alba, by Federico García Lorca. The production I saw was in Spanish, but the actors also presented an English version later that evening. The theatre in which they performed was small (less than 80 seats), and the set was cleverly incorporated into the entire space. The costumes were beautifully made to appear authentic to the time and location of the play (rural Spain at the turn of the last century). It was amazing!

You wanna know what was best about it?

I didn’t go out to see this production. I simply walked downstairs from my classroom to the “Shoebox Theater” and watched the end-of-semester project of my school’s Spanish for Native Speakers class.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. This was a class. A semester-long class, to boot. Since February, these students have been studying Lorca’s work (not just this play, but the others in the trilogy), the history, culture and politics of Spain and learning how to interpret and translate poetry and dialog between the two languages. There are only two seniors in this class, and none of the others had any on-stage experience prior to this production.

Did I make it clear that these guys are studying and performing Lorca? In high school? And not just in Spanish, but English as well! Plus, several of the students in this class were double cast (played different parts in each version of the play) for this production. This is big, people.

To give credit where it is very much due, I do not teach this class. That honor goes to Benigno Sanchez-Eppler. I work with many of the members of the cast in other ways (soccer coach, academic advisor), but two of the women (they deserve that title) in the cast were students of mine last year. Both spent time in Central America during the summer and fall (one in Guatemala, one in Mexico), and I was proud to see them move into that class when they returned to school.

It is both a blessing and a liability of teaching both French and Spanish that I do not teach upper levels of either language. I could not hope to do all the things I do and teach four separate classes in a day, and teaching introductory language classes offers me some sanity. This comes with a cost, though. I get most of my students when they are 9th and 10th graders, still in the throws of adolescence and not having a clear sense of who they are or why they’re here. They very often transfer from other schools, where they struggled academically and any real confidence in themselves as individuals. I see them in class every day, all year, when they are still getting used to being in high school. I’m in the trenches with them at the beginning, and I don’t often get to see what happens to them after they move on from my class.

It is always a special treat to see my students at their most amazing in a context that is not my class. I was moved nearly (nearly, mind you) to tears as I watched them afterward talking to the audience and members of the local press about the play, their interpretations of the language and the experience of being on stage for the first time (in their underwear!) There was an energy in that space then that was impossible to describe completely, except to say that it was positively exquisite.

That event brought to light other students I have worked with recently, and the ways they demonstrate their amazingness, and I thought I’d share with you a couple of them .

We have a jazz a cappella group at PVPA that a number of my students work with. 5-Alone makes truly beautiful music (I know this because they practice in the classroom across the hall from me in the afternoons). You can buy their CDs and check out their tour schedule at their website. (Lucia, in the front, still owes me a research paper!)

I don’t get to say that Sonya Kitchell is my student now because she withdrew from PVPA at the end of last year to pursue her career in music, but I am still very proud of her efforts for me. It took a lot of work on her part to go to school and get herself started at the same time, and I’m really excited that it’s starting to pay off. She was just on NPR, so you can hear her there. She also has a website.

Brianne, whom you have read about recently, gets props for putting the costumes together for the Bernarda Alba cast with absolutely no time. You did a great job! Now, finish your work for me and earn credit for French!

There are others. You’ll hear about them in time…

In Honor of Soldiers?

As the flowers rest on the decorated graves and the sunlight shines on the beautiful sailboats, Uncle Sam whispers in my ear about how we should care for the soldiers and remember the ones that have died. Swimming pools open, BBQs fry. Today is the day to think of what they have done for us. There are blurs of red, white and blue marching down the street and flags are lowered at half-mast. But we should always remember and never forget what set us free, from this very day on.

— Memorial Day by Ali M., 3rd Grader, Academy Elementary School, Madison, CT. © 2001. [Online] URL: http://www.usmemorialday.org/write.html


I find myself conflicted about this holiday. I have always wanted to believe in the absolute virtuousness of the sacrifice of a soldier’s life, but I’ve begun to question whether that ideal is, on its own, an appropriate thing to honor. I’m not dragging out a political soapbox here; I just want to get some thoughts out.

What are we really celebrating on this holiday? The answer we all learned in elementary school is that we should remember the soldiers who died defending and protecting our country. OK. What constitutes “defending and protecting”? Is that what our soldiers in Iraq are doing now? I know that’s what we are being fed as doctrine, but I have been offered this fruit before and have learned to distrust it. It’s that lack of trust in the worthiness of the sacrifice, I guess, that is at the root of my conflict. I’m just not sure it’s right and proper to memorialize soldiers who, for example, fight to enforce on others our ideals and causes, especially in the name of defending our country.

We’ve been told since Vietnam (and perhaps earlier, I don’t really know) that it is important to honor our soldiers for their sacrifice, even when we disagree with the cause they champion. After all, they are only doing what they’ve been told, right? Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote that, “…the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use.” Is that something worth honoring? As someone who has had his faith in his government and fellow citizens shaken and who values his experience and his intelligence, I find myself balking at this as a thing worthy of memorial.

Were soldiers today drafted or conscripted and sent off, as they were in times past, perhaps I would see this as much more black-and-white, but the truth of the matter is that they are not. Our military is composed of volunteers. Some, I’m certain, choose to serve for noble reasons; many do not and it insults me, quite frankly, to have someone tell me that a profiteer’s motives are as worthy of respect as the true patriot’s. Yet, how can I know one from the other? How can I know that the war they fight is an honorable one?

I very much value the nobility of true patriotism. I would not hesitate to give my life to defend my family (and that includes my “family-by-oath”) and my right to fulfill my destiny (and for others I love to fulfill theirs) free of oppression and tyranny. Those soldiers, volunteers or not, whose lives were taken in defense of these I gladly honor. I resent, however, the implication that I must also pay homage to those whose crusades are less principled.

Am I being hypocritical here? Quixotic? Your thoughts, as always, are appreciated.

Heard in School...

The following was overheard during lunch today at school. It was uttered in a single breath, without pause, in the space of exactly 1.34 seconds.

“Maybe I’ll shave my head. I’ll do it tomorrow. Well, not tomorrow. This weekend. I have to go a party this weekend. What was I talking about?”

You go, Brianne! You're amazing!

The Paradox That Is Me

I received recently an email request for random things about me, and it got me to thinking about the strange sorts of contradictions that are part of who I am. Here, as an example, are just some random things…

— I have smoked exactly 3 puffs of 1 cigarette in my entire life. I have never chewed or dipped, nor have I ever smoked weed (second hand smoke from college parties not included). I do, however, have every intention of taking up pipe smoking after I earn my Master’s degree.

— I am left-handed, but my right hand is far and away the more dexterous. Unlike most lefties, I prefer to use the mouse and hold my knife with my right hand. In soccer, I prefer to strike with my left foot, but my right foot controls the ball better and has better feel for it. I tilt my head to the left when I’m listening (so the right ear can hear better), but I put the phone on my left shoulder.

— It’s old news to most of you, but I’m colorblind—very much so. Particularly, I have a form of anomalous trichromatic vision in which all three colors (red, green and blue) are misaligned. I can see in color, but my range is much narrowed compared to most people and there are certain colors that I simply cannot distinguish from others. Brown, maroon, violet and purple are the worst (I have no perception of them whatsoever), but I have troubles with beige, teal, tan and certain pinks and oranges. I found out today that my condition is actually a combination of two separate genetic defects and that my limited blue sensitivity is exceedingly rare (0.0001% of men have it). Anyway, the actual paradox is that I have records from my early childhood that suggest that, even as early as preschool, I could identify all my basic colors, including brown and purple. I can actually do a pretty good job of identifying colors out of context even today. Just don't ask me to know if my tie goes with my shirt.

— I still have baby teeth. That’s right. Two of ‘em. My first molars on the bottom, as it happens. They are perfectly healthy and have no adult teeth pushing up under them. Counting these, I have 30 teeth. I have no idea where the other two went. I think I had the baby teeth pulled when I was young to make room for the adult teeth, and they just never came in. I didn’t have cavities as a kid, as far as I can remember.

— I have to sleep on whichever side of the bed is furthest from the door (Exception: My in-laws house. I have to sleep on the other side because the vent on the proper side blows on me and dries my eyes out. I never sleep well there). In restaurants and other public places, I have to face out, toward the door. I have particular places for my keys, my wallet, cell phone and I put these things only in those places. In contrast, I leave my glasses everywhere and can NOT, for the life of me, establish a routine place for them. I also have to be careful with my wedding ring. I take it off to type and I have often not realized I’ve left it until later. It usually causes my heart to stop when I absently go to twirl it around my finger and realize it’s not there. My office and woodshop are an absolute disaster area and, while I will claim to know where everything is in these places, this does not excuse the fact that I could hide a dead body in either location without fear of it being discovered for quite some time.

— I have more pairs of pajama pants than dress pants and jeans combined, but I have more polo shirts than t-shirts. Hey! At least I’m sharply dressed from the waist up!

— I am an enthusiastic Dungeons and Dragons® player and dungeon master, but I am also an avid fan of competitive sport (3 weeks to Germany 2006, soccer fans!).

— And finally, I have traveled numerous time to Europe and South America and I speak, to varying degrees of fluency, six languages. I have broadband access to the internet, so I have instant access to news, music and entertainment from all over the world. I love this! You want to know what I listen to whenever I can, though? American 80’s pop music.

¿Cuáles de las siguientes afirmaciones son correctas...?

I went to take the Spanish MTEL test this weekend. This test is one of the requirements to gain (or, in my case, add) a certification endorsement to teach in the state of Massachusetts. I teach primarily French at my school, but I routinely teach at least one class of Spanish in a given year as well as math, when the need arises. I already hold a certification for French, which is more than the state requires of me to teach in a charter school but, under the No Child Left Behind law passed in 2001, I am now required as a teacher in a public school (charter schools are public schools) to hold endorsements in every core academic subject I teach.

I went into the test stone cold. I’m not terribly pleased with how parts of it went, but overall I think it might be enough to pass. I figured it was worth the chance just to get the federal government off my back a little sooner and be able to keep my kickass soccer program running. The results are due to be available mid-June. I’ll let you know how I did.

I posted some time ago that I was going to have to take these certification tests so that I will be “highly qualified” as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act. I had a lengthy discussion about these tests with my administration and I complained loudly that the timing of this requirement was to say the least inauspicious, what with me still being in graduate school and all. I got a lot of sympathy, but it was made clear to me that I had no choice in the matter, if I intended to remain at the school. The discussion then turned somewhat heated when my soccer program was placed on the block pending my completion of at least one of these tests (Spanish). I will carry the bitterness from that meeting around for a long while, and I will go on record as saying that I do not appreciate the position I’m being placed in by legislators whose only interest in education is to use it as a political tool.

I take my role as an educator seriously. It is an essential part of my identity, and I continually strive to be as strong and adept at my craft as I can be. I am a skilled and knowledgeable teacher, quite conversant in a wide variety of subject matter and fully familiar not only in general teaching methodologies, but in several approaches specific to the individual disciplines I teach. It annoys me beyond words that, despite this solid foundation of expertise in a broad array of disciplines, I am not valued as an educator because I do not meet the federal definition of “highly qualified”, a phrase that refers specifically and only to an educator’s certification under their state’s rules in each and every core academic subject they teach. I cannot help but believe that, by using this as the standard for teacher quality, the federal government simply reinforces the public stereotype that the only thing you need to know to be a teacher is what you’re teaching.

This attention to content is undoubtedly expected to lead to a corps of educators who are very knowledgeable in their subject matter, but there are some tacit implications of this narrow concentration. For one, it supposes incorrectly that those coming into the profession will be properly dedicated to as well as adequately trained in the art of teaching before they are hired. For another, it states unequivocally that pedagogy is not valued as a separate and equally rigorous discipline.

In my view, superior teaching at all levels properly demands a broad base of expertise in many arenas of knowledge beyond the content of their classes. In addition, it requires considered wisdom, a talent for improvisation and a commitment to people, process and product. The public laments, and students have long bemoaned, those teachers in school who seem to treat their work as simply another job. While this view is, perhaps, stereotypical, most who have endured the trials of the traditional public school experience can name at least one teacher who fits the mold. They show up, hand out books, papers and exams. They give grades and monitor the lunch hall, but they convey no excitement for their material, no understanding of their students as individuals and no appreciation for the intricate nature of the practice of teaching. However technically qualified they may be, teachers cannot be considered to be doing quality work if they lack these more subjective, but equally important qualifications.

I will now step down from my soap box. Late warnings for my students are due on Monday. Good thing that test showed them I’m qualified to write them! Oh, wait. It didn’t. Well, maybe it did, but I’d have to write them in Spanish.

AIM 911

The following instant message was received this evening. It is recorded here as it was written, except that it was lightly edited for length and readability, and that the names of those concerned have been deleted to protect their identities (and their pride).

----: I need help!
----: I just emptied my cabinets with the extension to my vacuum.
Me: I am here. 'Sup?

----: I saw two mice.
----: I’m afraid to put my hands in the cabinets, so I used the extension, then one fell out into a glass, and I poured bleach on him until he didn’t move.
----: My dog is terrified too. He sits across the room and shakes.
Me: He's afraid because you are, I imagine. But he has just seen drown an animal in a glass of bleach. That’s pretty traumatic.
----: I banged on the cabinet doors with a hammer before I opened them, and the mice were still there. Staring at me.
Me: They were probably wondering what all the fuss was about.
----: My dad promised me they are only nocturnal and afraid of noises. He was very, very wrong.
Me: Well, you can be sure that they are not carnivorous. They're likely just looking for crackers or something.
Me: They won't harm anything but the crackers, really.
----: I threw out all my food and put the rest in the fridge.
Me: ok. That might have been overkill, but there you go.
----: They don't go where there isn't food, right?
Me: That's not strictly true, but close enough.
----: He came out, but he's scared of me now.
Me: I would be too, what with you wielding a hammer and a vacuum. Clearly you don't want to share any crackers!
----: I just saw him in the cabinet.
----: I’ll spray him with bleach!
----: I sprayed him with Febreeze before, but it didn't have the effect I wanted.
Me: You deodorized him??!?
Me: So, now you have a mouse that smells like a fresh spring breeze?
----: I think its summer linen, but yes.
----: He's very wet.
Me: Oh boy.
Me: Put him in the dryer and fluff him up, then you could use him to freshen the bathroom. :-)
----: Oh funny.
Me: I hope you'll forgive me, but I'm cracking up over here.
----: Well, I’m gaining confidence. I’m ready for him to show his face again.
----: I’ve turned off the TV so I can hear his pitter patter.
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.
.
----: Ha! I just sprayed him with bleach!
----: He's on the top shelf, and I’m not tall enough to see where he went.
Me: He's probably wondering why you're out to launder him.
----: My orange cleanser is enviro-friendly. That leaves me with bleach or carpet cleaner.
Me: He's not an ant. You're not likely to kill him by spraying him with anything.
Me: You're going to have to get him to leave, evict him, or trap him. Or maybe get lucky and drown him in bleach, but that's already happened once. I'd say the odds are slim of that happening again.
.
.
.
----: I just sprayed carpet foam all over him this time.
Me: He'll die clean, that's for sure!
----: The foam stopped moving, but I can't be positive he's still in it.
----: Cleaning supplies are the only poisons I have. Isn’t that an obvious solution?
Me: It's only poison if you drown them in it.
----: I can see his little feet sticking out of the foam.
----: I’ve conquered the beast!!
Me: Good Lord.
.
.
.

"Passion Is No Ordinary Word"

I was discussing with a student today what it was like to feel passion. She's working on a piece for her English class that she wants to send to “This I Believe”. She wrote about her first experience with romantic passion, and the conflict she felt when she realized that it left her completely unable to live her life the way she knew was good for her. I've asked her if she'd allow me to publish it here when it's done.

I could totally relate to what she was describing, and it got me to thinking about how the term gets overused and, as a result, has lost some of its meaning. At it's most pure, I think it's a difficult thing to put into words. [Kizz] wrote something recently in a post entitled Reader Opinion [CLICK HERE TO READ] that I thought got there, but I haven't tried to write about it myself. I'm inspired to try but, in the meantime, here's what I know, from my own experience...

It's a sensation that can completely overtakes me. I often become so caught up in the object of the feeling that I simply cannot concentrate on anything else. It makes my heart beat stronger and there is an electricity that surrounds me when I feel it. I get a tightness in my chest in a way that I can totally identify, but is not easy to explain. Sometimes it accompanies anger, sometimes sadness, sometimes ecstatic joy, sometimes wonderful peace. But always SOMETHING and always INTENSELY. I experience passion for many things—certain people, my teaching—but what things trigger it spontaneously, or why they do, I cannot say.

Have you ever experienced passion? I mean REAL passion? What did it feel like? Do you have an experience to share? I'd love to hear it!

When you say you're 'passionate' about [whatever], give me a sense of what you mean. What happens when you're [whatever-ing]? What does that passion feel like? You may say you feel transported. Transported to where? Take me there. Show me—so I can show my student—that passion is no ordinary word.

These are SOOOO my children!

SiSi, my 4 year-old, has just moved up in bicycle sizes, and is putting mileage on those little tires! She still gets a little paralyzed going down hills (damn near went out of control when she forgot about the brakes), but she really likes being able to ride. Ditto the swimming in the pool. Ditto the running and jumping and playing soccer… Contrast this with NiNi, my 2 year-old, who will walk downtown (¾ mile) with me, but is quite content to dig in the garden, play with her babies and generally be domestic. I’ll let you figure out which child takes after which parent.

I find it incredibly interesting just how different my children are. SiSi is passionate, dramatic, active. She likes little bits of lots of things (food, activites, conversations) and thrives on being in control. She’s a jeans and t-shirt girl. She feels things and emotional level and puts up masks and diversions to protect her core (and quite fragile) self. She is compelled to sing EVERYWHERE and is driven to investigate, but not necessarily to interact with, her environment.

NiNi is passionate, but not dramatic. Her emotions run deep and are expressed deeply, and from her core self. She is active, but not sportive as such (though this may just be because she’s so young). She likes one thing a lot, and will often focus on it to the distraction of everything else around her (“Hello? NiNi? Can you hear me?”). She’s wears dresses most of the time. She feels things on a personal level and spends a lot of time looking for and modeling relationships (playing with her babies, being close to mama and papa). She is very into reading right now and loves to talk with people. She is less inclined to investigate her world, but more inclined to interact with it (although she has discovered shyness around some people now).

The thing that cracks me up about them is not that they are intrinsically so opposite in so many ways, but that they work to maintain their differentness when they’re together. They are not competitive about it, but they enjoy the fact that they are distinct from each other and will often give each other the space to be distinct when they know it is important. If one picks A, the other will almost invariable pick B. That’s not to say that there isn’t conflict when they both want the same thing, but I am impressed that they will often avoid banging heads over things simply because they appreciate their differences.

I enjoy watching them interact as opposites, but I have fun with it, too. It is an interesting exercise to tell them that they can select from two choices (this food for lunch or that one, going to this place or that, etc.) but that we will only do one and they must come to consensus on their own. When they get older and really master the art of negotiation, look out! It’ll be like congress at budget time!

S told me some time ago that she and her husband each have one of their children that they connect with more closely than the other. I remember thinking at the time that this was curious because, while my children are almost exact opposites in most ways, Wifeness and I had not experienced that splitting. It looks like this is beginning to happen now. I have a much higher tolerance for the eccentricities of my older daughter than Wifeness. I love NiNi to distraction, but there are times when she drives me absolutely meshuggeneh. For Wifeness, the opposite is true. I think this development in our family dynamic has reinforced for me the importance of giving lots of love and attention to both my girls, and of finding ways to connect and bond with them both that celebrate and nurture their unique, individual spirits. They are certainly unique, but they are both amazing!

Taking some time...

Wifeness and her niece are in the living room, putting together a scrapbook for a mutual friend who is getting married next week. They are watching the movie In Her Shoes. There is a lot of feminine energy in there.

In an effort not to be overcome by estrogen, I have retreated to the bedroom. I’m listening to the Red Sox game on the radio, surfing the net and eating ice cream straight from the container with a soup spoon. With my little island of masculine energy secured, I thought I’d share that I’m reveling in the fact that I have the evening off from graduate school!

Sure, I have a pile of things to do that will fill the time up that normally is reserved for that work, but they can wait a few days. I could be grading papers, but there’s no such thing as a French or Spanish emergency, and the kids don’t really want all the homework back anyway. I could go up and clean my office up, so I can actually work up there, but I’ve already done my organizational work for the day in the form of the bi-annual Great Clothes Switch, so there’s no motivation to file and shelve tonight. Same goes for the basement. My dad helped me do some spring cleaning down there when he and my mom came to visit a couple of weeks ago, but to finish the job I’d have to get supremely grubby. Too late at night for that.

Nope, I’m quite happy just to sit and type for a while.

The Sox are winning. This ice cream is hitting the spot. Right here, right now, life is good.

OK. So it's been a while...

In the beginning, I decided to keep up this blog through March and decide whether it was worth it to continue beyond that. I didn’t make it much into February before I had to set it aside to focus on more pressing and time-consuming things like graduate school, teaching and being a papa, but I decided that I really liked doing it and, when the time presented itself, I would pick it up again.

Here we go.

It helps that I’m on break from graduate school, so I’ve got a bit more free time than I’ve had in a while (my evenings after 8pm are my own again!). I don’t know how long this will last, but I’ll do the best I can to make it worth your time to keep checking in.

I'm On My Second Life Now...

It is tradition for the people of Wayfarer House to go to the Franklin County Fair, which is usually held the first or second week in September. As it happened, it was just Wifeness, myself, SiSi and NiNi this year. Anyway, we went early in the morning and watched some horses being judged, some cows being milked and some sheep being shorn. We took in a couple of magic shows and followed a chap playing the bagpipes for a good fifteen minutes (Soren is absolutely fascinated by the bagpipes). Suzanne took the kids on a couple of rides. I don’t do rides anymore. They make me car sick and I throw up everywhere. After they were done spinning in circles and otherwise thumbing their noses at vertigo, we found a shady spot hiding a picnic table and enjoyed the traditional fried dough and sausage grinder for lunch. It was, at the time, delicious!

We went home shortly after, and everybody took a nap. When I woke up, I felt like I had an enormous gas bubble up just under my right lung. The pain from it was nagging at first, but grew steadily in intensity until, by suppertime, I would have happily given large sums of money to anyone who could figure out how to get it to go away. I had had such pain before over the last couple of years and antacids usually did the trick, or so I thought.

Not so this time.

In fact, I had taken pretty much everything possible during the course of the afternoon, and all that happened was the pain got worse. It had even spread around to my back and put those muscles into spasm! All I could think about while I was dealing with this was that this must be what women who have back labor feel. It got so bad that I actually threw up from it, completely wasting perfectly good fried dough and a sausage grinder.

I didn’t sleep a whole lot that night. I kept waking up to vomit. The next day the pain lessened to some degree, but anything I tried to do just made it worse. I wanted to eat, but nothing would stay down. Even water proved difficult to take. I thought about going to the doctor that day, but it was Sunday. That meant I would have to go to the emergency room, and I simply couldn’t bear the thought of paying $75 to have someone tell me to take two Pepcid and call him in the morning. That just didn’t seem right to me. So, I put up with it through Sunday and into Monday and went to school. If it had been any other day but the first day of classes, I would probably have called in sick. That first day, though, is just too important to miss unless things are really bad, and I had not convinced myself yet that they were that bad.

I was a doofus.

I’m certain that I must have looked as miserable as I felt, because people kept asking me if I was OK. I told everyone that it must have been food poisoning. That was the only explanation that seemed to make any sense to me. You’ll see how smart I was in just a sec. I was running a fever by the end of the day and, by the time I got home at 5:00, all I could do was lie on the couch. Wifeness asked if maybe I shouldn’t talk to the doctor (she is a wonderful and patient woman, my lovely wife!) and I didn’t resist. By this point, I don’t mind telling you that the pain was simply terrible and incredibly difficult to manage. When the doctor called back an hour later, he immediately suggested that it was my gallbladder and that I should go to the emergency room to have it looked at. It wasn’t until he had said the word “gallbladder” that I had even thought about that as a possibility. Once he said it, though, I knew instantly and instinctively that he was right.

Wifeness put the kids to bed and our friends upstairs kept an ear out for them while she took me to the ER. They ran a number of tests to confirm that it was, in fact, my gallbladder and offered me something for the now debilitating pain I was having. I’m not a big fan of pain medication, but I fairly grabbed it out of the nurse’s hands when they brought it in. I remained in the ER overnight for observation and they admitted me to the hospital the next morning. I had an ultrasound done to determine exactly how bad the situation was, and I’ll tell you the picture scared the hell out of me.

I could see my gallbladder on the screen, waaaay oversized and so full of stones that you couldn’t count them on the monitor. It looked like a bag packed tight with marbles. I found out later that the condition of the organ was even worse than that. By the time they pulled it out, it was completely dead and gangrenous, stretched so thin that it would have burst soon. Like in a matter of hours. The number of stones was estimated by the laboratory afterward at more than 500, with sediment filling up the balance of the space inside the organ such that it blocked off all flow of bilirubin, blood and oxygen (this, they believe, was the cause of the pain I was having initially).

I was in the hospital for 3 days leading up to the actual operation and, during that time, I spent all my energy trying to sleep when I could, and managing the pain in the periods when the one effective drug they could give me would wear off. They could only give the stuff to me every 6 hours, but it was only effective at best for 4 hours and, as time went along, it grew less and less effective. I dealt with it until Wednesday night, but finally I told the nurses that they needed to find something to fill that gap because I wasn’t going to be able to do it on my own.

They tried a variety of other things, including Morphine. Morphine, I now know, does NOTHING for me, except make me sick. Nothing else they gave me at first did any better. Damn me and my intolerance for drugs! To their credit, the nursing staff kept trying to come up with something. I owe them a lot for their efforts! I would not have made it through the night if they hadn’t solved the problem for me. The stuff they eventually found that worked was Dilotid. It’s a narcotic that apparently makes Morphine sound like Bayer aspirin. They gave it to me by IV just as the other stuff was wearing off and, I tell you, the effect was INSTANTANEOUS. I could actually feel the warmth of it spreading through my body and IT FELT GREAT!

They should definitely keep regulating that stuff.

I went down to Springfield Thursday for a test procedure before the actual operation later that day, and by that time I was going septic and approaching delirium. Wifeness said I was nearly incoherent and shaking. All I know is that I was running the same fever of 103.5 since Monday and I had not eaten anything since the now accursed fried dough and sausage grinder. They were very clear that I should have nothing to eat once I was in the hospital. Nothing. No juice or other liquids even. Nothing but ice chips.

Fucking ice chips.

The thing was that, by this time, the ice chips were actually starting to taste good. I was thinking as I was crunching them, “I can almost taste them like food!” It was a very strange experience.

I don’t remember anything after the ambulance ride down to Springfield until I came out of anesthesia after the operation. They drove me back up to Greenfield for that, which was probably best since they were familiar with my situation. The people at Baystate kept wanting to give me Morphine. I’m glad wife was there to tell them that was the wrong thing to do. It was a really hard experience for her, I know, but she was so great! I don’t know how she did it, to be honest.

I stayed in the hospital until that next Monday. I got to eat something liquidy—cream of wheat and tomato soup—on Saturday. That’s nearly 7 days without any solid food. I have fasted before. I have even been sick and unable to eat for several days (that’s another exciting story), but I have never had to go through anything nearly like this before. Cream of wheat had never tasted so good!

I’ve been home about 12 weeks now, and have been back to school since about November. I’m still nowhere near my pre-operation levels of endurance. My classes have been left to survive on their own, though I can’t understand why the kids think this is working for them. I think they were just sick of substitutes and handouts.

This whole thing was all too much excitement for me, but I’ll tell you that I feel so much better, and in so many ways. I lost about 12 lbs immediately as a result of the operation and the fucking ice chips, and the weight has continued to melt off even though I have not been able to do anything active since I came home. Actually, just today I was able to do a little Chi Kung, and it felt great even though it wore me out. There were no complications from the surgery, though the nice 8” scar I sport on my front means I’ll never be able to wear a bikini again. That’s just as well. The shaving was a bitch!

I’ll be a while before I can process this to understand just how harrowing an experience it was. Just think about it: 100 years ago, I’d be dead. Hell, if they hadn’t operated when they did, I’d be dead.

That’s too mind blowing right now.

What does this mean to YOU?

"People want so much. We want to be someone else. 'I want to be stronger.' 'I want to be more directed.' 'I want to be Superwoman.' But it's not possible. You must accept your condition. But 'accept' is active. Who you are is active. Passive acceptance--that's the immobile, inanimate Zen. It's not the Zen I'm talking about. There's passion here. Spirit for the quest. This is important: The sincerity of our quest and how we go about it. It's a long path. Are you prepared? Do you want to walk on this path? Don't think about it too much. Just walk! C'mon, let's go! That's Zen."

Jakusho Kwong, a successor in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, the author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, said this, and it is already among the most precious pearls of wisdom I have ever been given. Not because I want to be someone else but because, through this quote, there is a beauty expressed in it about what it means to become who you are. What do you think?

Listen for the Gong...

The Landmark Community School Foundation has decided to write a formal proposal to lease or buy some of this property.

http://www.nmhschool.org/about/future/docs/Northfield_LV.pdf

The committee in charge of reviewing proposals is evaluating a range of campus reuse scenarios. Their preliminary analysis concluded that the most appropriate use of the campus would be for one or more residential educational institutions. We believe that our project is ideally suited to this property, and we’re committed to presenting a serious and thoughtful proposal to the committee for its consideration.

Some of you may be called upon to help with this process. Listen for the gong.

Anyone who is interested is welcome to be involved. Reply to this post or email me, if you’d like to take part in this exciting project. We’d love to have you involved, in whatever way you feel called to contribute! If you don’t really know, we can certainly match your interest and expertise to what has to be done.