I read the story and sobbed. Hard.
What has happened to us?
Northern Illinois University, site of the "latest" campus "shooting event"...incredible that we can even use "latest" and "shooting event" in the same clause... I just don't know what to think. What have we done to ourselves? What has happened?
I feel these attacks personally. I had to teach in that post-broken-innocence, that all teachers (and students) now face in each and every classroom in the United States. I have had threats, I have been fearful, I have wondered what would have happened if I had said the wrong thing one night when a certain student had forgotten to take her meds.
And I have two children who I am trying my hardest to raise as loving, trusting souls...but must I put a caveat on everything I teach? "Yes, trust...but then again, you can't really trust anyone. You're in this alone. Really." That is not the world in which I want my children taking part.
But I have no choice.
Maybe I'm thinking too deeply about this. I just hate and resent, truly resent how utterly helpless I feel facing all we have to face now.
How can I change it? What in the world can I do to change this?
jueves, 14 de febrero de 2008
Does this year seem early to you?
It does to me.
Everything is happening so early. Easter is celebrated very early this year. Mardi Gras was extremely early. My mother even said that her birthday is NEVER the same week as Easter.
So I researched the question a little bit.
The Christian celebrations of Lent and Easter are determined by the lunar year; Easter traditionally falls the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. I did know that. This year, all of these occurances take place during the same week in March, with Easter falling on the 23rd. This is a rare occurance, I learned; indeed, Easter has not fallen so early as March 23rd since 1913. Woodrow Wilson was President. Lent that year began on February 5 (this year February 6 due to it being a leap year).
Easter will not occur this early again until we are all gone from this Earth, in the year 2160.
In case Alex ever were to ask that on Jeopardy!, you are now prepared.
Everything is happening so early. Easter is celebrated very early this year. Mardi Gras was extremely early. My mother even said that her birthday is NEVER the same week as Easter.
So I researched the question a little bit.
The Christian celebrations of Lent and Easter are determined by the lunar year; Easter traditionally falls the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. I did know that. This year, all of these occurances take place during the same week in March, with Easter falling on the 23rd. This is a rare occurance, I learned; indeed, Easter has not fallen so early as March 23rd since 1913. Woodrow Wilson was President. Lent that year began on February 5 (this year February 6 due to it being a leap year).
Easter will not occur this early again until we are all gone from this Earth, in the year 2160.
In case Alex ever were to ask that on Jeopardy!, you are now prepared.
miércoles, 13 de febrero de 2008
ice storm
Even the power lines look elegant with the drooping sway of 1-2 inch icicles lacing their lengths. The limbs of the cherry and the infant maple are encased in whitish ice.
If the sun were shining, it would be quite a sight. Alas, it is a gray and heavily misty day, with the ice slowly melting away.
I will try to take some pictures but, as I do not own a digital camera but a 35 mm, it will be a while before I will be able to post them.
The schools in this district are on a two-hour delay this morning, and power was temporarily knocked out in the middle of the night, only for about an hour and a half. After dropping la Princesita off at her class, I will head down to the City for another dubbing project for work. Unfortunately, this schedule meant I had to cancel my morning class--win some, lose some.
If the sun were shining, it would be quite a sight. Alas, it is a gray and heavily misty day, with the ice slowly melting away.
I will try to take some pictures but, as I do not own a digital camera but a 35 mm, it will be a while before I will be able to post them.
The schools in this district are on a two-hour delay this morning, and power was temporarily knocked out in the middle of the night, only for about an hour and a half. After dropping la Princesita off at her class, I will head down to the City for another dubbing project for work. Unfortunately, this schedule meant I had to cancel my morning class--win some, lose some.
lunes, 11 de febrero de 2008
my father-in-law
He is a good and generous man, my father-in-law. He is a dentist by trade, is known for being good and gentle, and would take payment in the form of fresh fish or kahlua pig if a patient could not monetarily recompense services rendered.
He suffered a bilateral stroke last night and is in the hospital now. It appears his speech is quite slurred and he can be hard to understand...
...oh, the painful memories of my own dear father this brings rushing back to my heart...
He is far away, on a distant island and currently inaccessible to those in his family who are constrained by money, childcare, their own health issues, jobs and/or geography--two of his children, his brothers--so many on the mainland, so hard to get back.
No need to rush right now, so my sister-in-law says. Many people recover from strokes.
Perhaps that is so.
But I know better.
Maybe it is my own bitter life experience that has shown me otherwise.
Tonight my heart hurts. For his family, for the pain all must endure in knowing and seeing such a good, strong man become suddenly so weak. For this period of unknowing that inevitably occurs. For feeling all of that they are numb to, for I know and intimately understand the numbness and dreamlike, auto-pilot state of being we kick into under these circumstances. For my own memories that I cannot let go.
He suffered a bilateral stroke last night and is in the hospital now. It appears his speech is quite slurred and he can be hard to understand...
...oh, the painful memories of my own dear father this brings rushing back to my heart...
He is far away, on a distant island and currently inaccessible to those in his family who are constrained by money, childcare, their own health issues, jobs and/or geography--two of his children, his brothers--so many on the mainland, so hard to get back.
No need to rush right now, so my sister-in-law says. Many people recover from strokes.
Perhaps that is so.
But I know better.
Maybe it is my own bitter life experience that has shown me otherwise.
Tonight my heart hurts. For his family, for the pain all must endure in knowing and seeing such a good, strong man become suddenly so weak. For this period of unknowing that inevitably occurs. For feeling all of that they are numb to, for I know and intimately understand the numbness and dreamlike, auto-pilot state of being we kick into under these circumstances. For my own memories that I cannot let go.
The 123 meme
Okay...a couple of my bloggy buddies have this up so I ought to follow suit.
As I am usually in my classroom for my computing time...hmmm...let's see what I have that isn't just a word list:
Manual de gramática, for my advanced students. No, p. 123 is just a list.
The text currently used at the local University that I am tutoring a few students with...no, p. 123 is simply oral exercises.
Okay...next is my intermediate text. Ah-JA! An actual article.
It's in español. (duh)
An article about "La vida anti-estrés" (Anti-stress Life): La tensión femenina (Feminine tension)...okay, this could just totally be me here:
So there you go.
Now you can SEE I did not cheat on the rules and go find something academic and extremely intellectual from my basement filled with mental masturbation--oh, I mean lit crit and theory.
I am sooooo beyond trying to sound smarter than I really am.
(That was sooooo my 20s!)
Below are the rules, let me know in a comment if you follow through or not--but I hate tagging others. Trying to rid "obligation" from my life, and thus I cannot fairly push obligation onto others!
Instructions:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open it at page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence/ phrase.
4. Blog the next four sentences/ phrases together with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig your shelves for that very special or intellectual book.
(6. Pass it forward to six friends.)
As I am usually in my classroom for my computing time...hmmm...let's see what I have that isn't just a word list:
Manual de gramática, for my advanced students. No, p. 123 is just a list.
The text currently used at the local University that I am tutoring a few students with...no, p. 123 is simply oral exercises.
Okay...next is my intermediate text. Ah-JA! An actual article.
It's in español. (duh)
An article about "La vida anti-estrés" (Anti-stress Life): La tensión femenina (Feminine tension)...okay, this could just totally be me here:
"Hay innumerables ejemplos de mujeres extenuadas." (There are innumerable examples of over-extended women.)Hmmmm...sounds like an article I should go back and read...
So there you go.
Now you can SEE I did not cheat on the rules and go find something academic and extremely intellectual from my basement filled with mental masturbation--oh, I mean lit crit and theory.
I am sooooo beyond trying to sound smarter than I really am.
(That was sooooo my 20s!)
Below are the rules, let me know in a comment if you follow through or not--but I hate tagging others. Trying to rid "obligation" from my life, and thus I cannot fairly push obligation onto others!
Instructions:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open it at page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence/ phrase.
4. Blog the next four sentences/ phrases together with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig your shelves for that very special or intellectual book.
(6. Pass it forward to six friends.)
domingo, 10 de febrero de 2008
NEE-NUR NEE-NUR NEEEEE-NUR!
I finished my taaaa-xes. Ha ha ha!
And you probably did not.
Be honest. Have you even LOOKED at your pile of papers from 2007 yet?
(feeling a wee bit self-righteous tonight)
Sorry. That is why I am Me. Too anal to wait until the last minute. Just can't do it. Plus, I am livin' for that refund, baby, albeit considerably less this year due to my self-employment.
But when you pay (gasp) 16,000$ in mortgage interest in a year (OUCH!), you're bound to get something back.
(BIG GRIN)
Now I get a glass of wine, just for finishing everything up. Gotta love TurboTax!
And you probably did not.
Be honest. Have you even LOOKED at your pile of papers from 2007 yet?
(feeling a wee bit self-righteous tonight)
Sorry. That is why I am Me. Too anal to wait until the last minute. Just can't do it. Plus, I am livin' for that refund, baby, albeit considerably less this year due to my self-employment.
But when you pay (gasp) 16,000$ in mortgage interest in a year (OUCH!), you're bound to get something back.
(BIG GRIN)
Now I get a glass of wine, just for finishing everything up. Gotta love TurboTax!
V-day in Japan
Valentine's Day is not celebrated quite in the same way in Japan as it is elsewhere. It is merely a day during which women shower men with gifts of food, chocolate, drink and superficial shows of appreciation, perhaps crushes and/or love.
Women do not receive anything on this day. Instead, a mere obligatorily "reciprocation" and acknowledgment of the given gift of chocolates is granted the woman on March 14, called "White Day".
She will instead receive gifts of soaps, shampoos and body scents.
Bah.
Does this mean to say the men think that we stink?
Why do they get the chocolate and we get body scents?
Yet another reason to boycott the whole day, in my humble opinion.
Oh, and pass the wine. And, um, don't you DARE forget the chocolate.
(Soy-free, of course.)
Women do not receive anything on this day. Instead, a mere obligatorily "reciprocation" and acknowledgment of the given gift of chocolates is granted the woman on March 14, called "White Day".
She will instead receive gifts of soaps, shampoos and body scents.
Bah.
Does this mean to say the men think that we stink?
Why do they get the chocolate and we get body scents?
Yet another reason to boycott the whole day, in my humble opinion.
Oh, and pass the wine. And, um, don't you DARE forget the chocolate.
(Soy-free, of course.)
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