January 28, 2008

A second day of terrible weather.  A black sky dumped a mix of snow and ice on us in the early hours of Tuesday.  Last night and into this morning it was ice.

When we looked out this morning yesterday’s snow glistened in the pale light of a winter’s dawn. The trees were weighed down with ice that encircled each branch like a see-through sheath. Icicles dripped. The car was frosted.

We are living in a Winter Wonderland, and here is what I have learned: I hate Winter Wonderlands.  Why can’t we just have a, you know, Regular Wonderland?

 I blame all those lunatics who were going around two months ago singing “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow.” Well, they got their wish and the rest of us are suffering.

Knuckleheads.

The weather kept our little family trapped inside most of yesterday. Because we are sans Internet at the house, I braved a drive to a computer a mile a way to email my professors the sad news that I wouldn’t be in class. 

I am not a homebody. When I’m home and not asleep for more than about three hours, I get stir crazy. I need to get out, get into the wide world, find adventure or at least work.

This morning, in spite of the ice, the roads were in slightly better shape since the temperature had crept above the freezing point. I took the opportunity to bolt.  I headed for the office to squeeze in some work and to gather what I need for work at home. It looks like we’re going to be stuck in this for a while.

January 25, 2008

The key to success in a graduate program, especially if you are working full time, is time management. The key to a student’s time management is the syllabus. The syllabus is the document that details the agreement between professor and student about what the class will entail and the duties of each party.

This has been a weird semester. Tomorrow begins the third week of the term and one of my classes has yet to meet. It’s a Monday class and classes started on Wednesday the first week. Last Monday was MLK Day, so no class.

Naturally, we have no syllabus for that course yet. That didn’t stop the professor from emailing us an assignment. Earlier today I got an email from another professor assigning work for Tuesday that was not in the syllabus he passed out last week. All these surprise assignments are messing with my time management.

Apparently, these professors think we students have tons of free time, spend our days sipping coffee and chatting, or piddling with our pet projects. In other words, they seem to think we live the life of a professor.

The emails invariably go something like this:

 Hi Everyone!!

I know class starts in sixteen minutes, but if you could read pages 6- 839 of Watson’s “Endless Recitation of Irrelevant Minutia” (on sale in the bookstore for $300, used) and write up a quick 30-page response before we get there, that should set us all up for some good discussion.

If you can’t, don’t worry about it.

This assignment will constitute 90 percent of your grade.

Looking  forward to seeing you all!!!

January 24, 2009

Rounding out Christmas break by spending ten days with my parents afforded a world of new opportunities. See, they have cable.

Two programs dominated my viewing time. Transformation was their theme. The first program was Mtv’s “MADE”, where the producers take some high school student and help him meet a goal, and “What Not to Wear” on TLC.

The premise of the TLC show is that family and friends nominate someone they believe needs a makeover, then the two affable hosts/style consultants swoop down from their chic paradise to usher the poor schlub into a future of natural fabrics and flattering lines.

We love to watch someone made new, witness their ascent to a better self. It’s the kind of thing I could suck up for hours. But I don’t. When I dream of my own better self, one thing I know that Dean does not do is waste days watching television no matter how inspiring the programming.

I’ve been experiencing some nose pain lately, probably due to having put it back to the grindstone. The start of the second semester has got me running to catch up. Such hustle explains the lack of posts.

I am changing my strategy. I’m going to try to write shorter posts in the snatches of time I can afford. Short posts are hard for me. I am always afraid they will end abruptly.

January 10, 2009

I met two of my former high school teachers for lunch today. Neither of them seemed to have changed much, at least not in ways that really matter.

Oh, there may have been a few more hairs gone gray, a wrinkle here or there, but the most precious things about them, the good humor, the nimble  minds, the warmth of their good will, pulsed with the same endearing energy.

I continue to marvel at how much of my basic perspective on life was formed by these men and their passion for literature and education and, well, The Human. 

When I was a young teen, they instilled in me the notion that being human could be a wonder and that the products of the imagination matter as much or more than bald profit. They taught me that what answers were to be had to the great questions lay in pages crafted by those who went before. They taught me human quandaries were universal. They taught me, if not to love the past, at least to respect it as the source of all possible relief for our deepest sufferings.

Such ideas have served me well, but also left me on the outside in a world that too often holds these notions in scorn.

The conversation focused on teaching.  More than once we mentioned students who have no curiosity about the world, no sense that they are responsible for their own education.

I illustrated the point with this story:

One semester while teaching basic public speaking, I had a student whose first four speeches were merely average. They were scattered and sloppy and delivered with a level of energy one normally only sees in long-term prisoners of war.

His fourth speech, declaring his belief that marijuana ought to be legal, stood out. The delivery was still cold and uninvolved, but the rhetoric was polished. The sentence structure was complex, the organization artful. I knew he hadn’t written it.

Later I googled the first sentence. A link took me to a service selling papers for $25 a shot. What a waste of pot money.

The web page showed an abstract of the paper on offer. The first two sentences were almost exact matches with the speech I had heard.

So, he failed.

After the semester ended he contacted me wanting to talk about his grade. I delayed responding to his email as I completed the paperwork necessary to turn him in to the Dean. Not long after, I received a second email saying:

Professor Abbott,

I would very much like to talk to you about my grade if you can spare me the time. If you are available, please let me know. My parents have taken away my car.

Thank you very much.

 

One of my companions topped this story by relaying that a member of his extended family had served in the athletic department of a major university in the South.

In the course of this man’s duties he spoke to one player’s professor and asked, “Well, what is he doing that’s causing him to fail?”

“He cheats,” the professor said.

“Are you sure,” this man asked.

The professor pulled two quizzes from a shelf.

“This one is from the person he sits next to,” he said.

In answer to one question the student had written, “I don’t know.”

The professor then presented the football player’s paper. Where the first student had written, “I don’t know,” the athlete had written, “I don’t know either.”

January 9, 2008

Well, counter to expectations, the hat did not cause trouble.

Only two guys initially showed up to the mini-reunion. Neither of them seemed to notice the hat. Still, I suspect their hearts were full of covetousness. After a couple hours catching up and reminiscing, three female classmates joined us.

I stayed two more hours. Even though those women sat and talked about their husbands, kids and all the travails of adult life, I found I could think of them only as girls.

After all these years, there is part of all of us that remains unchanged, a central timeless core. The chance to experience that part of people, to be reassured that amidst the swirling uncertainties of life some invisible kernel lies untouched at the heart of us all, makes the price to be paid for reconnecting worthwhile.

And there is a price. Humility and a willingness to forgive are necessary if you want to come back into the circle. After some conversation with the guys last night about people who wouldn’t come to our 20-year reunion because of grudges they still bear, it was clear there are some for whom that price is too steep. I am glad I am no longer among their number.

In the News

A couple of news stories have gotten my attention.

First, this one:

A US man divorcing his wife is demanding that she return the kidney he donated to her or pay him $1.5m (£1m) in compensation.

This guy definitely has a problem, but it’s not a missing kidney. It’s that he’s heartless. He’d have to be to make such a request.

Imagine that she agreed to give it back. What would he do then? Try to get rid of it on Craigslist? I doubt that even there he’d find a market for a twice-used kidney.

Also, I doubt he’d be able to find a doctor willing to put it back where it came from. I understand about donating organs, but I thought the donor and the recipient were supposed to be two different people. The guy just needs to realize that when it comes to kidneys, there’s no such thing as a loaner.

Also, did you hear that John Travolta’s son died? If you hadn’t heard, I’m astonished, given that the media went a touch overboard with this one. A young boy died somewhat mysteriously and quite suddenly. It happens all the time, and only Jett Travolta warrants 24-hour coverage.

Now Tom Cruise is stoking the fire by going on televison to talk about the kid’s death. Hasn’t this young man suffered enough?

I mean, the one thing worse than dying young would be dying young and having Tom Cruise as your spokesman. The suffering would be enough to make anyone very angry at ol’ Lord Xenu.

Another Awesome Uke Girl

I love this song.

January 8, 2009

I stuck it out until the bitter end, and a bitter end it was.

Zombies

The first time I tried watching Return of the Living Dead I was a teenager and found it too gruesome to finish. Last night, on a second attempt, I sat through to the closing credits with only a slight quivering in the gut.

RLD is a cut above most 80’s horror movies, no question. The effects are cheap and the acting is often unconvincing, but the story is tight and fast-paced and sweeps you up in a way that makes you want to overlook these shortcomings.

The movie offers a valauble moral insight underneath all the nihilism and  brain eating. In just ninety minutes, we see how one man’s desire for esteem in the eyes of a young employee in his charge leads to the destruction of the world. “Don’t be a show-off; you just might destroy civilization” is the moral here.

The film is all the more striking because the story seems to unfold in something close to real time. Though some scenes begin with titles purporting to tell the viewer the times at which events are unfolding, it’s easy to get the sense that everything could have taken place in the ninety minutes it takes to view the movie.

The result is a movie that is compelling both because of its horror and its moral vision. The combination is what keeps people returning to this movie when so many other films from the period have been consigned to the celluloid dump heap.

Pickles

You know what’s less horrifying than a zombie apocalypse?

Bread-and-Butter Pickles. That’s right. I’ve recently been reminded of my love for these tasty little gems. I am convinced there is no human situation and no sandwich to which a few of these zesty discs can’t add sparkle. Whatever you’re going through–bad break-up, painful physical therapy after a terrible accident, existential angst brought on by listening to the clock of your own mortality tick your very essence away–some bread-and-butter pickles are sure to lighten the mood.

That is why, as America stands on the brink of financial collapse, I urge the new administration to consider a massive financial bail-out for the pickle industry. Let this money be tied to production requirements of b-and-b’s. No dills. No sweet gherkins. Just bread-and-butter pickles to help the people cope.

The Curse of Good Taste

Tonight, I am planning to attend a follow-up to my 20-year reunion. Some guys from my class, none of whom I was close to in school, are getting together. I’m nervous. I’m eager to get to know these guys, but I anticipate problems because of the hat.

For Christmas I was given this cap. I fear from the outset these relationships will be plagued by bad feelings stemming from deep-seated hat envy on their part. I fear those guys will feel inadequate as the ruminate on their shelf of run-of-the-mill ball caps and that one goofy hat they picked up in Vegas, the one with the side pockets for poker chips.

I mean, how could they not? I must remember to be sensitive and not to rub it in. I shall have to keep my conviction about my superior choice in headwear firmly under my, well, you know….

Awesome Uke Girl

Found this at Boing Boing this morning.

January 7, 2009

The few stores I visited this afternoon in my dying hometown all smelled bad. The odor of mildew and neglect crowded my nostrils. One place was so rank I could only gag and run for the door. The owner, who sat half-hidden in a pile of junk he was hawking, surely thought that odd.

That shopkeepers would tolerate the decay of their businesses says a lot about who is left in this town. I suspect there are few people left here who want to work hard enough to create places they can be proud of. People with that kind of ambition have mostly moved on.

Attention to detail is important. In a music shop I wandered into, I picked up a beautiful new guitar. Her body was perfect, curves in all the right places and tan all over. Her long neck begged for a caress. When I picked her up and began strumming, I was disappointed to hear a cacophony that was not due to my limited musical skills. She had gone out of tune and been left to squawk.

If you’re going to sell guitars, you should take the time to keep them in tune. Customers who might buy need to get an accurate sense of how instruments sound. Being able to pick up any one of them and play is half the fun of being in a place like that. Don’t deny customers that joy because it takes three minutes to tune a guitar in the morning.

The one bright spot of my afternoon out was being able to rent Return of the Living Dead at the DVD store for fifty cents. I love horror movies, but the Mrs. is easily spooked. These times when we are separated offer a rare opportunity to indulge this scary habit.

I saw RLD  once many years ago. I remember that it really disturbed me for some reason. I’ve wanted to revisit it for a while to see what shook me so. I don’t anticipate being bothered this time. I’m much older now. As I’ve aged, I’ve actually become more sensitive to scary or violent footage in films. But I’ve also become a lot more willing to use the stop button and walk away.  If the movie starts to bug me this time, I’ll dump it. After all, what do I have to lose but half a dollar?

January 5, 2009

In the gloom, I could see her tiny head approaching. My daughter, dumped in the bed next to me by the Mrs. early this morning, hauled herself up on my shoulder until her face was even with mine, only inches away.

Then, her little voice heavy with concern broke the silence.

“You tired, Daddy?”

“Not anymore,” I said.

The Holidays are Over

Yesterday, we crated away the ornaments, the manger, the sheep, a gang of shepherds and the holy family. I dragged the tree to the parking lot next door and tossed it atop a piney pile. The whole neighborhood’s once-festooned trees now lie there in the damp and cold waiting for some Boy Scouts to come see them to their fate.

I’m always happy to see the holidays end. Not until they’re over do I have any sense of new beginning. With all that stuff packed away I feel like I can finally get down to work.

Blog News

Part of getting down to work has meant making some changes to this blog. I’ve rewritten all the titles. Instead of giving these posts real titles, I’m just using the dates on which they were written. My goal is to see this blog grow into a mix of online journal entries and more polished pieces.

The other pieces will have titles related to their content, but the journal entries will just have dates. The goal is to organize all posts by their content, so someone who wants just to read just journal entries and click on the “Journal Entries” category link on the right side of the page and read them in reverse chronological order. 

I know a blog of journal entries will have limited appeal. I imagine my audience will be made up of people who know me or strangers who stumble on this page and connect for some reason with what I’m writing. That’s okay. I’m grateful for any readers at all.

One More Thing

I looked forward all semester to having time over break for guitar practice. Learning an instrument from scratch takes a lot of persistence, and the guitar requires additional pluck. The strings cut into your fingers, your hands ache.  That thing can hurt you.

Just yesterday, I got my third chord down. That’s enough to get started on some songs. While fooling around and picking some strings within the chords last night, something that sounded vaguely like music started creeping out of the sound hole. Shocking. Who knew that was hiding in there.