Gotcha, didn't I? Seriously, though, my experience so far writing Facebook poems with friends has been beneficial in many ways. I've written fifteen decent drafts so far. I've shared my poetry with friends and family. I've involved my Facebook community in writing and reading poetry. Yay, me! But perhaps the thing I am most intrigued by is what I have learned.
My whole life has been centered on learning. I have never been out of a classroom, either as a student or a teacher, except for summer breaks and holidays. It is safe to say that I am obsessed with finding out, with revealing. And these fifteen poems have been the sources of some very interesting revelations.
Today, I made "southern style" cornbread thanks to my dear friend Liat who posted her memories of cornbread baked in bacon fat for FB poem #15. The image of the cornmeal and the cast iron skillet resonated with me, and I chose to focus the poem on it. That meant I had to research how to make skillet cornbread. I'm from LA. Cornbread came from the Jiffy box. I could not have written that poem without learning that "true southern women" have a jar or can of bacon fat on their stoves, that the grease should coat the bottom of the skillet, and that the skillet should be heated in the oven before the cornbread batter is poured in. It should make a satisfying sizzle. For lunch, my family and I had bacon, apple slices, and cornbread with salted butter baked in bacon grease. It was fan-tastic.
Thanks to Travis, I learned that a brass monkey is not, in fact, liquor that you buy illegally at Mike's Liquor Store on Western Blvd. and drink as you're walking down the alley in Gardena, contrary to what I learned as a teen. It is, however, a brass plate designed to keep a pyramid of cannon balls from rolling around on the deck of a ship. Joe C. taught me that the origin of the "three to a match" superstition probably originated in WWI in the trenches. One cigarette lit from a match alerts the enemy of your location. Two allows them to sight you. The third gets a kill shot. Joe H. let me know that no actor speaks the title MacBeth. It is "the Scottish play," unless you want your show to go seriously wrong.
The image of standing in the mist of a waterfall was given to me by Kat, and Brent gave me the idea of a woman too stubborn to leave her house, even as men jacked it up to move it so that the land could be flooded. I have researched and learned about tattoo styles, Jimmy Fallon, Indonesian spices, Go Ask Alice, roller coasters, the formula for Silly Putty, and Mobius strips. It may seem silly, but I feel as if I know the FB friends who post a little better. I feel more connected to each of them.
While many feel that social media separates us because we do not have to communicate in person any more, I contend that it can be a way to learn and grow. Over the past 24 years, I have moved many times, and I have met and lost touch with many friends. FB allows me to keep up with some, and at the very least touch base with many more people from my past lives. I look forward to benefitting from my Facebook friends as long as they will indulge me.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Facebook Poems: The Beginning
In the past couple of weeks, I've begun a series of poems on Facebook, creatively titled "Facebook Poems." The idea is that I post a prompt such as "what tattoo would you get and why" or "respond to the word reminder." Throughout the next 24 hours, Facebook friends post their immediate responses, whatever comes into their heads first. At the end of that period, I take the posts and try to pull ideas or phrases from as many of them as possible, link them together, and I turn them into a poem. This process has been as fun as it has been enlightening. While writers always get their ideas from their experiences in the world and their interactions with other people, the end results are usually filtered only through the writer. In other words, the gathering together of ideas is usually not a public process.
By its nature, writing is a solitary art. I have at least one hundred poems on pages that may only ever be read by me. If a poet expects to publish in a journal, he or she must not publish his or her poems in any way because no journal will accept a poem that has already been published. I have long lamented this, since, as a painter, I can post pictures of my art all day long and still have the work accepted into shows. Posting on Facebook give an artist free publicity and, on many occasions, revenue. While I realize that poetry does not sell like paintings, it is disheartening that we feel we cannot share our work on Facebook, get our names and our writing abilities "out there," for fear of never publishing. Poetry is meant to be read, heard, taken in and rolled around, and shared. It is not meant to sit in a drawer or on a flash drive.
Writing these poems, there are five drafts now, has been a wonderful, freeing experience for me. I am getting out of my head and writing about subjects I would have never thought about in just that way without the Facebook friends who posted their thoughts. Yesterday, I wrote a poem based on the prompt "respond to abandoned places" called "Concept of Time" (any suggestions for a better title?) that examines the idea that every moment in time exists at every other moment in time. I've tried to write about this idea before, but I have been largely unsuccessful. I like the draft I got, and I like it because Kathleen said who she was yesterday was abandoned, Brent wrote a fascinating bit about walking on the remains of a flooded town near the Hudson (he even sent a map!), and Joe mentioned cities he himself had abandoned. I love the fact that I feel connected to these poems because of the people who contributed their thoughts and experiences, and I love that I am sharing my poetry with them.
Check out the Facebook poems, and better yet, take the posts 24 hours later and write your own! Wouldn't it be cool to read what we all come up with? Poem, flash fiction, photo; whatever your medium, I'd love to see it happen. Perhaps some publisher somewhere will accept my Facebook poems someday, but until then, I am enjoying my writing, and I am enjoying the community we create, poem by poem.
By its nature, writing is a solitary art. I have at least one hundred poems on pages that may only ever be read by me. If a poet expects to publish in a journal, he or she must not publish his or her poems in any way because no journal will accept a poem that has already been published. I have long lamented this, since, as a painter, I can post pictures of my art all day long and still have the work accepted into shows. Posting on Facebook give an artist free publicity and, on many occasions, revenue. While I realize that poetry does not sell like paintings, it is disheartening that we feel we cannot share our work on Facebook, get our names and our writing abilities "out there," for fear of never publishing. Poetry is meant to be read, heard, taken in and rolled around, and shared. It is not meant to sit in a drawer or on a flash drive.
Writing these poems, there are five drafts now, has been a wonderful, freeing experience for me. I am getting out of my head and writing about subjects I would have never thought about in just that way without the Facebook friends who posted their thoughts. Yesterday, I wrote a poem based on the prompt "respond to abandoned places" called "Concept of Time" (any suggestions for a better title?) that examines the idea that every moment in time exists at every other moment in time. I've tried to write about this idea before, but I have been largely unsuccessful. I like the draft I got, and I like it because Kathleen said who she was yesterday was abandoned, Brent wrote a fascinating bit about walking on the remains of a flooded town near the Hudson (he even sent a map!), and Joe mentioned cities he himself had abandoned. I love the fact that I feel connected to these poems because of the people who contributed their thoughts and experiences, and I love that I am sharing my poetry with them.
Check out the Facebook poems, and better yet, take the posts 24 hours later and write your own! Wouldn't it be cool to read what we all come up with? Poem, flash fiction, photo; whatever your medium, I'd love to see it happen. Perhaps some publisher somewhere will accept my Facebook poems someday, but until then, I am enjoying my writing, and I am enjoying the community we create, poem by poem.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Repost: Living with Type I Diabetes
Living with Type 1 Diabetes
Top eight things PWDI (people with diabetes Type I) wish everyone knew:
Imagine going to a restaurant with your three-year-old and asking the waitress to see the nutrition information for the items on the menu. Now imagine said waitress eyeballing you when you say you need to know how many carbs are in their macaroni and cheese with fries and a chocolate milk kids' meal. No matter what the waitress is actually thinking, this is what many moms of diabetic children think they are thinking. "Why is she making that cute little kid diet/ so conscious of what she's eating? She's not fat." And then you open your mouth to explain, and then you close your mouth because it's not the waitress's business. And then you open it again because you might be able to educate the waitress about Type 1. Then you close it again because half the chocolate milk is gone and you forgot to take your kid's pre-meal sugar.
Imagine, after this carb-filled meal, that the waitress happens to return to your table to ask if you want anything else, and you are sticking a needle into your kid's behind, the syringe cap clenched between your lips. Again, the diabetic mom's thoughts run in the direction of "Is that a look of pity? It better not be." And your inner mom lion roars, but you give it a steak and tell it to go settle down for a while. You chose to give shots in public so your child would not feel "different" or feel that her diabetes is something she should hide or be ashamed of.
This is a disease that, quite simply, most Americans know little to nothing about. They do know about Type 2 diabetes because obesity and health care are in the news just about every day. But these are two very different diseases. For more information, please go to the JDRF, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, website at JDRF.
- Type 1 diabetes, aka juvenile diabetes, cannot be controlled through diet and exercise. That is type 2, aka adult onset diabetes.
- Type 1 diabetics can eat food that contains sugar. Please see #1 above.
- Type 1 diabetics will die without their insulin.
- Insulin does not cure type 1 diabetes. The disease is for life.
- Type 1 diabetics will not "grow out of" the disease. See #4 above.
- Insulin is a hormone that helps break down carbohydrates into sugars/glucose so the body can use them. Type 1 diabetics produce little to no insulin.
- Sugar-free does not equal carb-free.
- Type 1 diabetics cannot take a day off from their insulin. Please see #3 above.
Imagine going to a restaurant with your three-year-old and asking the waitress to see the nutrition information for the items on the menu. Now imagine said waitress eyeballing you when you say you need to know how many carbs are in their macaroni and cheese with fries and a chocolate milk kids' meal. No matter what the waitress is actually thinking, this is what many moms of diabetic children think they are thinking. "Why is she making that cute little kid diet/ so conscious of what she's eating? She's not fat." And then you open your mouth to explain, and then you close your mouth because it's not the waitress's business. And then you open it again because you might be able to educate the waitress about Type 1. Then you close it again because half the chocolate milk is gone and you forgot to take your kid's pre-meal sugar.
Imagine, after this carb-filled meal, that the waitress happens to return to your table to ask if you want anything else, and you are sticking a needle into your kid's behind, the syringe cap clenched between your lips. Again, the diabetic mom's thoughts run in the direction of "Is that a look of pity? It better not be." And your inner mom lion roars, but you give it a steak and tell it to go settle down for a while. You chose to give shots in public so your child would not feel "different" or feel that her diabetes is something she should hide or be ashamed of.
This is a disease that, quite simply, most Americans know little to nothing about. They do know about Type 2 diabetes because obesity and health care are in the news just about every day. But these are two very different diseases. For more information, please go to the JDRF, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, website at JDRF.
Friday, June 22, 2012
How is a creative thesis like a cat collar?
Putting a book of poetry together is sort of like putting a collar on a cat. It can be done. There is proof on my shelves that many, many poets have managed to put books together, sometimes many, many different books. I've seen cats wearing collars; not my cats, but other people's cats.
Back when I lived in Pensacola, I had a little apartment off East Nine Mile Road in which lived my cat, Thorny. I also had a job at a local bank as the drive-thru teller. For whatever reason, possibly because my brain was addled from telling at least five different people a day that the bank they were at was not, in fact, their own bank, and in fact, their bank had an entirely different name, as was evidenced on their personal checks, possibly because I thought Thorny might escape and need identification, I decided to put a collar on my cat.
It was a good thing I had this brilliant idea before I got dressed for work. By the time Thorny was wearing the tiny strip of green leather around his brown and black striped neck, my forearms were flayed strips of flesh and Thorny had shed a small child. I took a shower, covered up my arms with Neosporin and gauze, and went to work.
When I got home about four hours later, I was greeted at the door with an horrific sound like some unnameable thing was digging its way out from under the floorboards, and that thing was pissed. Thorny sat in the middle of the front room, chin down on his chest, baleful green eyes glaring up at me. He growled. I backed up. He threw himself on his side and attacked his neck with his hind feet, kicking what little hair he had left all over the beige carpet.
I ran to him and managed to hold all of his writhing feet in one hand and his head with its pointy little teeth in the other so I could see what was wrong. It was the damned collar. Thorny's teeth were stuck in the extra holes, and he was ready to rip his bottom jaw off to free himself. Not wanting to risk further maiming and possible dismemberment, I grabbed the kitchen shears and cut the collar off. Thorny hid in the bedroom for an entire day.
For the past two weeks, I have been wrangling with my poetry, trying to get it to sit still long enough to put it in a certain order so I can name it, so that the sum of its parts will be identifiable as its own entity. I have had to change poems to "fit." Before attempting to put this thing together, I had no idea, for instance, that I am apparently obsessed with feathers, arrows, bow hunting, and all iterations of the Diana/huntress myth. Since that is not the focus of my thesis, I've had to pull a lot of those images out. To my delight, I've discovered aspects of my own poems that I didn't know were there.
My goal now? To not strangle my poems, and to get them to coexist from cover to cover.
Back when I lived in Pensacola, I had a little apartment off East Nine Mile Road in which lived my cat, Thorny. I also had a job at a local bank as the drive-thru teller. For whatever reason, possibly because my brain was addled from telling at least five different people a day that the bank they were at was not, in fact, their own bank, and in fact, their bank had an entirely different name, as was evidenced on their personal checks, possibly because I thought Thorny might escape and need identification, I decided to put a collar on my cat.
It was a good thing I had this brilliant idea before I got dressed for work. By the time Thorny was wearing the tiny strip of green leather around his brown and black striped neck, my forearms were flayed strips of flesh and Thorny had shed a small child. I took a shower, covered up my arms with Neosporin and gauze, and went to work.
When I got home about four hours later, I was greeted at the door with an horrific sound like some unnameable thing was digging its way out from under the floorboards, and that thing was pissed. Thorny sat in the middle of the front room, chin down on his chest, baleful green eyes glaring up at me. He growled. I backed up. He threw himself on his side and attacked his neck with his hind feet, kicking what little hair he had left all over the beige carpet.
I ran to him and managed to hold all of his writhing feet in one hand and his head with its pointy little teeth in the other so I could see what was wrong. It was the damned collar. Thorny's teeth were stuck in the extra holes, and he was ready to rip his bottom jaw off to free himself. Not wanting to risk further maiming and possible dismemberment, I grabbed the kitchen shears and cut the collar off. Thorny hid in the bedroom for an entire day.
For the past two weeks, I have been wrangling with my poetry, trying to get it to sit still long enough to put it in a certain order so I can name it, so that the sum of its parts will be identifiable as its own entity. I have had to change poems to "fit." Before attempting to put this thing together, I had no idea, for instance, that I am apparently obsessed with feathers, arrows, bow hunting, and all iterations of the Diana/huntress myth. Since that is not the focus of my thesis, I've had to pull a lot of those images out. To my delight, I've discovered aspects of my own poems that I didn't know were there.
My goal now? To not strangle my poems, and to get them to coexist from cover to cover.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Sleepless Nights and Endless Days, or MFA Residency at Converse College
Trying to summarize a Converse College MFA in creative writing residency is a little like trying to summarize your own wedding: you know that there were people there, food and alcohol were enjoyed, you had deep conversations with one or two people, some sitting was involved and someone spoke words of wisdom, there was music, and you made bonds for life. There was cake.
Just as weddings can be a blur, this past summer residency is almost impossible to adequately describe. I'll give you the highlights. The poetry group had three new poets, all of whom brought new styles and insights. Fried green beans and "Redneck Burgers" at the NuWay were late night snacks more nights than is probably heart healthy, and several of us closed the bar down on $5 pitcher night. Nightly "recaps" with Rhonda and morning walks with Cheryl were therapeutic, enlightening, and, on one occasion, spooky. All I'll tell you is it involved a copper downspout and a fight between a bird and a squirrel. Marlin Barton's lecture "Reaching the Lyric Register in Fiction" informed us about writing vertically to slow down time and add depth to your story or poem, John Lane made us think about our "intellectual ancestors," those thinkers we are most likely to draw upon from our subconsciousness, and Rick Mulkey reminded the poets about "sonic distance" and "sonic intensity," the idea that how one writes a poem can be as important as what is being written.
We heard the Shane Pruitt band rock at the NuWay. The first incarnation of the Converse MFA band was born at the graduation ceremony, and we performed spontaneous renditions of Skid Row's "I Remember You" and John Cougar Mellencamp's "Pink Houses," among other songs. Life bonds were made with new friends and strengthened with old. There was thick chocolate cake embellished with chocolate shavings.
If the comparison of a wedding to a residency in creative writing still seems a bit far-fetched, consider this:
each semester, Converse MFA students vow that writing will be a major part of their daily lives. For ten days twice a year, the pen and the keyboard are permanently attached to our fingers; our brains are bound to the word.
This past residency was my last. In January, I have to complete a four day graduating residency, a lecture, and a reading from my creative thesis. While I look forward to the degree and the possibilities that come along with it, I can't help but wish that residencies would never end. Converse MFA students, faculty, and staff, I will remember you always.
Just as weddings can be a blur, this past summer residency is almost impossible to adequately describe. I'll give you the highlights. The poetry group had three new poets, all of whom brought new styles and insights. Fried green beans and "Redneck Burgers" at the NuWay were late night snacks more nights than is probably heart healthy, and several of us closed the bar down on $5 pitcher night. Nightly "recaps" with Rhonda and morning walks with Cheryl were therapeutic, enlightening, and, on one occasion, spooky. All I'll tell you is it involved a copper downspout and a fight between a bird and a squirrel. Marlin Barton's lecture "Reaching the Lyric Register in Fiction" informed us about writing vertically to slow down time and add depth to your story or poem, John Lane made us think about our "intellectual ancestors," those thinkers we are most likely to draw upon from our subconsciousness, and Rick Mulkey reminded the poets about "sonic distance" and "sonic intensity," the idea that how one writes a poem can be as important as what is being written.
We heard the Shane Pruitt band rock at the NuWay. The first incarnation of the Converse MFA band was born at the graduation ceremony, and we performed spontaneous renditions of Skid Row's "I Remember You" and John Cougar Mellencamp's "Pink Houses," among other songs. Life bonds were made with new friends and strengthened with old. There was thick chocolate cake embellished with chocolate shavings.
If the comparison of a wedding to a residency in creative writing still seems a bit far-fetched, consider this:
each semester, Converse MFA students vow that writing will be a major part of their daily lives. For ten days twice a year, the pen and the keyboard are permanently attached to our fingers; our brains are bound to the word.
This past residency was my last. In January, I have to complete a four day graduating residency, a lecture, and a reading from my creative thesis. While I look forward to the degree and the possibilities that come along with it, I can't help but wish that residencies would never end. Converse MFA students, faculty, and staff, I will remember you always.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Another semester ends...and by definition, a beginning.
Forgive me. It is at this time every semester that I wax a bit nostalgic, and then I try my best to rein it in. How is it that we, as teachers, spend two, three, or five days a week with 75-100+ students, learn their names and habits, discuss their lives with them, hear their joys and their tragedies, and then are expected to simply let them go?
This profession is one of loss, and I mean no negativity by that. But when you work every day to help other people to better themselves, you lose a little bit of yourself every time one goes away. I'd really like to write something more upbeat, but I am nothing if not (sometimes painfully) honest. Yes! So and so is now a successful _______, and I might have been a tiny part of that. But the fact remains that we are in the business of letting go.
I can't help but think, at this time every semester, what it will be like when my children are ready to leave. Yes, I know it may be sentimental to describe students as children, and most of the time, I don't think of them in quite this way. But after today, they will parachute away like dandelion seeds, like Charlotte's tiny progeny, and fly off into their lives. And I will likely never see them again.
Oh woe is me. Poor baby. And give me a break. But I simply can't help it. Another group of students has come and gone, and I am left in the same place. The small office I share with a colleague, slowly being buried in papers left behind and post-it notes. Perhaps it is that now, at 40, I could be their mother? But no, I don't think that's it.
My entire life has been a series of meetings and leavings. Some slightly longer than others, but none as long as I'd like. Bussing out and moving and college and marriage and flight school and moving, moving, moving...there are so many people who hold small pieces of me that I have no way of getting back. I have no regrets, but I am given to reflection. Cry me a river.
Perhaps it is the fact that I am about to enter the last semester of my most recent life chapter: my MFA in poetry. In all likelihood, these wonderful friends, sisters and brothers, will be simply Facebook friends in less than a year. This program has affected me in more wonderful ways than I can mention here. Perhaps it is the fact that my beautiful daughter lost another tooth; one more step on her way to her own life, separate from mine. And, there's always the chance that I'm just plain silly.
I remain, ever, a part of larger things, blown on the breath of a child, left to travel and land where I may, and there to take temporary root.
This profession is one of loss, and I mean no negativity by that. But when you work every day to help other people to better themselves, you lose a little bit of yourself every time one goes away. I'd really like to write something more upbeat, but I am nothing if not (sometimes painfully) honest. Yes! So and so is now a successful _______, and I might have been a tiny part of that. But the fact remains that we are in the business of letting go.
I can't help but think, at this time every semester, what it will be like when my children are ready to leave. Yes, I know it may be sentimental to describe students as children, and most of the time, I don't think of them in quite this way. But after today, they will parachute away like dandelion seeds, like Charlotte's tiny progeny, and fly off into their lives. And I will likely never see them again.
Oh woe is me. Poor baby. And give me a break. But I simply can't help it. Another group of students has come and gone, and I am left in the same place. The small office I share with a colleague, slowly being buried in papers left behind and post-it notes. Perhaps it is that now, at 40, I could be their mother? But no, I don't think that's it.
My entire life has been a series of meetings and leavings. Some slightly longer than others, but none as long as I'd like. Bussing out and moving and college and marriage and flight school and moving, moving, moving...there are so many people who hold small pieces of me that I have no way of getting back. I have no regrets, but I am given to reflection. Cry me a river.
Perhaps it is the fact that I am about to enter the last semester of my most recent life chapter: my MFA in poetry. In all likelihood, these wonderful friends, sisters and brothers, will be simply Facebook friends in less than a year. This program has affected me in more wonderful ways than I can mention here. Perhaps it is the fact that my beautiful daughter lost another tooth; one more step on her way to her own life, separate from mine. And, there's always the chance that I'm just plain silly.
I remain, ever, a part of larger things, blown on the breath of a child, left to travel and land where I may, and there to take temporary root.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
If all else fails, punch 'em in the face.
It is the end of week eight. For two months, I have been working out with Tony Horton and P90X. This is a record for me and exercise. I am definitely stronger, but I have had a major realization. I am not yet, nor was I for quite some time, in shape. Dang.
Apparently, I have been fooling myself for quite a while. If I may say, I have always been physically strong. My mom and dad are both what they call work horses, and I inherited those genes. I have never had trouble moving furniture, hauling mulch, picking up and chasing children and large dogs. I have never asked anyone to carry anything for me. All of this led me to believe that I was in relatively good shape. Boy howdy was I wrong.
Over the past eight weeks, I have yoga'd and kenpo'd and cardio'd faithfully. I feel better, my clothes fit better, but I am not the lithe young thing I thought might appear after two months. In fact, I have not yet lost any weight. Which tells me two things: 1. I didn't have as much muscle as I thought I did. 2. I had a lot more fat than I thought I did. Double dang.
Here's the thing. I'm sticking with it. Whether it's because I'm 40 or because this program appeals to me doesn't matter. I should say that a good portion of the reason I like it is because I'm pretending to punch and kick people. Grabbing by the collar and knee to the face might be my favorite. Say what you like, but yep. It helps. What matters is that I've found an activity I like that I can do with the multitude of things I've got going on. No gym, no special equipment, no babysitters. Yay me!
So...I encourage you to find your activity. Join me in feeling better. And, you know, kick some bastard in the chest. What could it hurt?
Apparently, I have been fooling myself for quite a while. If I may say, I have always been physically strong. My mom and dad are both what they call work horses, and I inherited those genes. I have never had trouble moving furniture, hauling mulch, picking up and chasing children and large dogs. I have never asked anyone to carry anything for me. All of this led me to believe that I was in relatively good shape. Boy howdy was I wrong.
Over the past eight weeks, I have yoga'd and kenpo'd and cardio'd faithfully. I feel better, my clothes fit better, but I am not the lithe young thing I thought might appear after two months. In fact, I have not yet lost any weight. Which tells me two things: 1. I didn't have as much muscle as I thought I did. 2. I had a lot more fat than I thought I did. Double dang.
Here's the thing. I'm sticking with it. Whether it's because I'm 40 or because this program appeals to me doesn't matter. I should say that a good portion of the reason I like it is because I'm pretending to punch and kick people. Grabbing by the collar and knee to the face might be my favorite. Say what you like, but yep. It helps. What matters is that I've found an activity I like that I can do with the multitude of things I've got going on. No gym, no special equipment, no babysitters. Yay me!
So...I encourage you to find your activity. Join me in feeling better. And, you know, kick some bastard in the chest. What could it hurt?
Monday, March 26, 2012
Warning: Rant
At 6:30 pm, D and I sat down to watch the CBS Evening News as we most often do. In the middle of the headlines/teasers for the night's stories was something close to the following: surgery can cure diabetes. D actually stood up and raised his hands in the "touchdown" formation. Being Ms. Skeptic, I said, "Type 1 or Type 2?" There may have been an expletive in there; I can't quite recall.
Needless to say, the segment was on gastric bypass/ gastric sleeve surgery intended for people with Type 2 diabetes, or PWD2. As a mother of a six-year-old PWD1 and wife of a forty-year-old PWD1, I am up to here with the general conception that diabetes is ONE disease.
It is most assuredly not.
Type 2 diabetes can sometimes be prevented or even reversed. Type 2 diabetics are typically overweight or even obese. Type 2 diabetics are not typically insulin dependent.
Type 1 diabetes cannot be prevented. Type 1 diabetics can be any size person. Most that I know are in enviable shape. Type 1 diabetics are insulin dependent.
Type 1 diabetics will DIE if they do not have their insulin.
Type 1 diabetes cannot be controlled by "diet and exercise."
Why does this piss me off so much? Because when a reputable news source headlines their nightly news with a "surgical cure for diabetes," I want to see an artificial pancreas that works. I want to see FDA approval of islet cell transplants. I want to see my daughter's stem cells, which we pay to have stored each year, cure her.
I don't want to see her lose the feeling in her fingertips because she has tested her blood sugar for thirty years. I don't want her to take one more effing shot.
So please, if I may be so bold, be precise with your words. 1 or 2.
Needless to say, the segment was on gastric bypass/ gastric sleeve surgery intended for people with Type 2 diabetes, or PWD2. As a mother of a six-year-old PWD1 and wife of a forty-year-old PWD1, I am up to here with the general conception that diabetes is ONE disease.
It is most assuredly not.
Type 2 diabetes can sometimes be prevented or even reversed. Type 2 diabetics are typically overweight or even obese. Type 2 diabetics are not typically insulin dependent.
Type 1 diabetes cannot be prevented. Type 1 diabetics can be any size person. Most that I know are in enviable shape. Type 1 diabetics are insulin dependent.
Type 1 diabetics will DIE if they do not have their insulin.
Type 1 diabetes cannot be controlled by "diet and exercise."
Why does this piss me off so much? Because when a reputable news source headlines their nightly news with a "surgical cure for diabetes," I want to see an artificial pancreas that works. I want to see FDA approval of islet cell transplants. I want to see my daughter's stem cells, which we pay to have stored each year, cure her.
I don't want to see her lose the feeling in her fingertips because she has tested her blood sugar for thirty years. I don't want her to take one more effing shot.
So please, if I may be so bold, be precise with your words. 1 or 2.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Catching Up: Weeks 4 & 5
This semester is going by so quickly! And just so you know, I have switched topics for my critical paper. Instead of writing on the use of poetry in the composition classroom, I am writing on the poetry itself - doing more of a critical analysis. This will focus on hybridity and/or pluralism in American identity as represented in poetry. Specifically, I'm looking at Agha Shahid Ali's A Nostalgist's Map of America (remember him?), Robert Penn Warren's Audubon: A Vision, and Louise Gluck's Averno. All three are wonderful books - check them out!
Now, am I giving up on the critical thinking through poetry experiment? No! I continue to use this technique in my classes. Last week we read and researched Warren's "Tell me a Story," and this week we are using Kim Addonizio's "Scary Movies." Overall, this warm-up strategy is still working well, and my students are being exposed to poetry and poets they might have never read otherwise. Our in-class discussions are productive and continue to be relatable to writing in general. Take Tuesday's class: one student blogged his "story" based on Warren's poem. It was VERY brief and had no detail. We ended up having a good talk about showing, not telling, and emphasizing that showing is necessary in academic writing as much as it is in creative writing.
I am putting off this topic until the end of the semester so I can gather data from the entire experience, rather than trying to force a paper out of half a class. I plan on writing this paper and trying to publish it at a later date.
So...identity - hot topic. Controversial topic. And something I have been fascinated with for just about ever. Wrote my master's thesis on it using Salman Rushdie novels. (Which you should read, of course! My favorite is The Moor's Last Sigh.) Right now, I am examining the poetry mentioned above with regards to the speakers. Each of them are living on the edges of several different "worlds." How they reconcile, or do not reconcile, those worlds to form a cohesive identity is my area of interest.
Now, am I giving up on the critical thinking through poetry experiment? No! I continue to use this technique in my classes. Last week we read and researched Warren's "Tell me a Story," and this week we are using Kim Addonizio's "Scary Movies." Overall, this warm-up strategy is still working well, and my students are being exposed to poetry and poets they might have never read otherwise. Our in-class discussions are productive and continue to be relatable to writing in general. Take Tuesday's class: one student blogged his "story" based on Warren's poem. It was VERY brief and had no detail. We ended up having a good talk about showing, not telling, and emphasizing that showing is necessary in academic writing as much as it is in creative writing.
I am putting off this topic until the end of the semester so I can gather data from the entire experience, rather than trying to force a paper out of half a class. I plan on writing this paper and trying to publish it at a later date.
So...identity - hot topic. Controversial topic. And something I have been fascinated with for just about ever. Wrote my master's thesis on it using Salman Rushdie novels. (Which you should read, of course! My favorite is The Moor's Last Sigh.) Right now, I am examining the poetry mentioned above with regards to the speakers. Each of them are living on the edges of several different "worlds." How they reconcile, or do not reconcile, those worlds to form a cohesive identity is my area of interest.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Week Three: Waxing Nostalgic
Regarding Rumpelstiltskin: did you know that, at the end of one of the Grimm versions, Rumpelstiltskin actually tears himself in half? He has a fit, stomps his foot into the ground so far that he can't get it out, and his solution is to literally divide himself.
Are we doing our children a disservice by "Disneyfying" folk and fairy tales? What are the consequences if Hansel and Gretel are not going to be eaten by the witch, but instead, say, lose their cell phone privileges? What if Little Red's grandmother is not eaten by the wolf, but is instead, say, locked in a closet? Is the lesson learned? Do we coddle our children, even in their stories?
Should my six-year-old understand that Snow White's step-mother wanted her step-daughter's heart ripped from her chest and presented to her in a beautifully crafted wooden box?
These are some of the ideas my classes discussed as a result of their research into Maxwell's poem. Good discussion; interesting topics.
Then, we read this week's selection: "Snow on the Desert" by Agha Shahid Ali. The poem is from the book A Nostalgist's Map of America.
When I picked this poem, I did so knowing full well that it is (for my students) long. But it is so beautiful and compelling (for me) that I wanted to try it.
One of my students compared the imagery of the fog opening and then closing as the speaker's world closing up, and several others mentioned liking the idea of driving through the desert knowing it used to be the bed of an ocean. Everyone got that this poem was about the relativity of the passing of time. If you're reading this, I hope you read the poem and get what I'm writing about. If you haven't yet, let me give you the first lines:
“Each ray of sunshine is seven minutes old,”
Serge told me in New York one December night.
“So when I look at the sky, I see the past?”
“Yes, Yes,” he said, “especially on a clear day.”
I don't think I'll ever look at the sky the same way again. How much do I want to write a poem that does this?
Back to my classes though - I found that many of my students have never actually been to a desert. It is so much a part of my upbringing, going camping across the southwest, growing up in Southern California, that it is hard to believe that less than 10 of my 75 students can visualize driving across a landscape so desolate that one doesn't need to be told it once was a sea to believe it. Pictures do not do the desert justice. It is something one has to experience first hand. I wonder how many of these students will ever actually go.
There were plenty of opportunities for research in this poem for students of all areas of interest. Some of the things they are looking up are the Bangladesh War, singer Begum Akhtar, the Papagos, saguaro cactus, and the book (?) The Desert Smells Like Rain. Can't wait to see what interests them come Tuesday.
Now...is this working? Yes. The poem warm-ups are putting my students into the thinking mode. They are actively engaged from the beginning of class: reporting their research, listening to the new poem, blogging, reading and listening to the blog entries. This has translated into more actively engaged students overall. Today, we did our first whole-class critique of a student's first draft, and I got better responses than is usual.
And...I'm reading poetry not just for my own enjoyment, but also for my students' range of experience. Perhaps we'll get some new readers of poetry? Perhaps someone will venture out to the desert and feel the passage of time.
Are we doing our children a disservice by "Disneyfying" folk and fairy tales? What are the consequences if Hansel and Gretel are not going to be eaten by the witch, but instead, say, lose their cell phone privileges? What if Little Red's grandmother is not eaten by the wolf, but is instead, say, locked in a closet? Is the lesson learned? Do we coddle our children, even in their stories?
Should my six-year-old understand that Snow White's step-mother wanted her step-daughter's heart ripped from her chest and presented to her in a beautifully crafted wooden box?
These are some of the ideas my classes discussed as a result of their research into Maxwell's poem. Good discussion; interesting topics.
Then, we read this week's selection: "Snow on the Desert" by Agha Shahid Ali. The poem is from the book A Nostalgist's Map of America.
When I picked this poem, I did so knowing full well that it is (for my students) long. But it is so beautiful and compelling (for me) that I wanted to try it.
One of my students compared the imagery of the fog opening and then closing as the speaker's world closing up, and several others mentioned liking the idea of driving through the desert knowing it used to be the bed of an ocean. Everyone got that this poem was about the relativity of the passing of time. If you're reading this, I hope you read the poem and get what I'm writing about. If you haven't yet, let me give you the first lines:
“Each ray of sunshine is seven minutes old,”
Serge told me in New York one December night.
“So when I look at the sky, I see the past?”
“Yes, Yes,” he said, “especially on a clear day.”
I don't think I'll ever look at the sky the same way again. How much do I want to write a poem that does this?
Back to my classes though - I found that many of my students have never actually been to a desert. It is so much a part of my upbringing, going camping across the southwest, growing up in Southern California, that it is hard to believe that less than 10 of my 75 students can visualize driving across a landscape so desolate that one doesn't need to be told it once was a sea to believe it. Pictures do not do the desert justice. It is something one has to experience first hand. I wonder how many of these students will ever actually go.
There were plenty of opportunities for research in this poem for students of all areas of interest. Some of the things they are looking up are the Bangladesh War, singer Begum Akhtar, the Papagos, saguaro cactus, and the book (?) The Desert Smells Like Rain. Can't wait to see what interests them come Tuesday.
Now...is this working? Yes. The poem warm-ups are putting my students into the thinking mode. They are actively engaged from the beginning of class: reporting their research, listening to the new poem, blogging, reading and listening to the blog entries. This has translated into more actively engaged students overall. Today, we did our first whole-class critique of a student's first draft, and I got better responses than is usual.
And...I'm reading poetry not just for my own enjoyment, but also for my students' range of experience. Perhaps we'll get some new readers of poetry? Perhaps someone will venture out to the desert and feel the passage of time.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Liar, Liar, Pants on...
Week two: poetry experiment. So this week my students returned with their research on Moore's "Baseball and Writing." Elston Howard was the first African-American to be on the Yankees. He held all kinds of records, and he played in ten World Series, winning six. A-mazing. This is just one thing they learned. We discussed how writing was similar to baseball in that writer's block is an "injury" one must treat, that writing is difficult, but worth it, and that, again, reading effectively is a process and a practice.
Then came Thursday. I have all kinds of fantastic poets on my reading list for this semester. These are writers whose poems examine American identity with artful thought. But I could not find a poem that I felt was appropriate for the second week of teaching my freshmen. One of the reasons last week's poems were what they were was for their "ease of use." Establishing trust in my classroom is the most important thing I can do in the first few weeks. No trust equals no results. I didn't want to drop an emotional bomb week two. So...I spent three hours Thursday morning searching for a poem about identity that was not too heavy, man.
Then, I found Glyn Maxwell's "Rumpelstiltskin." What a fantastic little huge poem. We read it. Then they blogged. We talked about lying, living two lives, privacy issues including OnStar and GPS, color theory, what nurses need to know about patients who lie and the reasons they lie, what teachers need to know about students who lie and their reasons, the nature of signifiers (!), and the relativity of truth. Yes, yes we did.
And...at least 50% of my second semester freshmen have never heard of Rumpelstiltskin. Seriously.
Tuesday, I expect to hear about how knowing the folk tale makes (or doesn't make) a difference in understanding the poem. I expect to hear about spinning straw into gold. And I expect to discuss the importance/significance of naming. Most of all, I expect (hope?) to hear interest in their voices and to see passion for learning in their eyes. How fantastic.
Then came Thursday. I have all kinds of fantastic poets on my reading list for this semester. These are writers whose poems examine American identity with artful thought. But I could not find a poem that I felt was appropriate for the second week of teaching my freshmen. One of the reasons last week's poems were what they were was for their "ease of use." Establishing trust in my classroom is the most important thing I can do in the first few weeks. No trust equals no results. I didn't want to drop an emotional bomb week two. So...I spent three hours Thursday morning searching for a poem about identity that was not too heavy, man.
Then, I found Glyn Maxwell's "Rumpelstiltskin." What a fantastic little huge poem. We read it. Then they blogged. We talked about lying, living two lives, privacy issues including OnStar and GPS, color theory, what nurses need to know about patients who lie and the reasons they lie, what teachers need to know about students who lie and their reasons, the nature of signifiers (!), and the relativity of truth. Yes, yes we did.
And...at least 50% of my second semester freshmen have never heard of Rumpelstiltskin. Seriously.
Tuesday, I expect to hear about how knowing the folk tale makes (or doesn't make) a difference in understanding the poem. I expect to hear about spinning straw into gold. And I expect to discuss the importance/significance of naming. Most of all, I expect (hope?) to hear interest in their voices and to see passion for learning in their eyes. How fantastic.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Week One Critical Paper or What Percentage of College Freshmen Despise Poetry?
So I've decided to document my progress on my critical paper using this blog. For those of you who are not Converse College MFA students...in the third semester, we are required to write a +/- 25 page critical paper on some aspect of our chosen genre. I am a poetry student and a composition teacher, so I thought it would be a great idea to try to combine the two. Here's my snappy paper title: Using identity themed poems to encourage critical thinking in the composition classroom. Huzzah!
There are two reasons why I went in this direction instead of analyzing a specific poet or group of poets. One: one of my classes last semester came to the conclusion that they don't like poetry because they "have to think about it too much." Two: critical thinking is necessary for good writing, and many of my freshman composition student need help in this area. If I'm honest, that's an understatement. Businesses regularly lament the lack of writing skills of their newly graduated hires, and the rest of the university regularly asks us folks in the English Department just exactly what we are doing with writing, 'cause their students can't.
Week one: I presented my idea about using poetry to encourage critical thinking. I gave a survey to my students asking them about their experiences with poetry and research. My students inwardly (and outwardly) groaned. I assured them they would not be graded on their analysis of the poems. We would be using poetry as warm-up exercises to get into the critical thinking/writing mode. They felt a bit better.
On Tuesday, I read Billy Collins' poem "Introduction to Poetry" and had the students blog about their responses to the poem. That went OK. They "got it."
On Thursday, I read Marianne Moore's poem "Baseball and Writing." They didn't "get it." I discovered something wonderful, though. After the first reading, every student understood that the poem talked a lot about baseball, and that there was supposed to be some connection with writing. Their blogs showed that they "got" more than they thought they did. And I was able to explain the process of reading actively without having read a single chapter in our textbook. Read the piece through once. Write down what you understand. Read it through again. Look up what you don't understand. Read it through again.
The fact is that many students stop reading whatever is required for their courses because they don't "get" the first few lines. Ethics, philosophy, logic, sociology, and psychology texts may seem to be beyond their understanding, and so they stop reading. I contend that if a reader can simply read through a piece once without stopping and ignore what they think they don't know, that reader will be able to write down something about that piece. That something will then be clarified on the second read, or possibly the third.
This is when my students say, uh-huh. Right. I barely have time to read all this stuff once, and you're asking me to read two or three times? And I say, yes. That's what it takes until you become a better reader, and becoming a better reader will help you become a better writer. That's the goal.
Assignment for next Tuesday: write down one idea, word, phrase, or name from "Baseball and Writing" to look up. Look it up. Report back to the class. The idea behind this assignment is to get my students to take a small second look at the text through research. We'll see how it goes.
At the very least, I had fun introducing myself to my classes and going over the syllabi for the first time in a long time, I got to share some poetry with composition students, and I got them thinking right off the bat. Yay me!
There are two reasons why I went in this direction instead of analyzing a specific poet or group of poets. One: one of my classes last semester came to the conclusion that they don't like poetry because they "have to think about it too much." Two: critical thinking is necessary for good writing, and many of my freshman composition student need help in this area. If I'm honest, that's an understatement. Businesses regularly lament the lack of writing skills of their newly graduated hires, and the rest of the university regularly asks us folks in the English Department just exactly what we are doing with writing, 'cause their students can't.
Week one: I presented my idea about using poetry to encourage critical thinking. I gave a survey to my students asking them about their experiences with poetry and research. My students inwardly (and outwardly) groaned. I assured them they would not be graded on their analysis of the poems. We would be using poetry as warm-up exercises to get into the critical thinking/writing mode. They felt a bit better.
On Tuesday, I read Billy Collins' poem "Introduction to Poetry" and had the students blog about their responses to the poem. That went OK. They "got it."
On Thursday, I read Marianne Moore's poem "Baseball and Writing." They didn't "get it." I discovered something wonderful, though. After the first reading, every student understood that the poem talked a lot about baseball, and that there was supposed to be some connection with writing. Their blogs showed that they "got" more than they thought they did. And I was able to explain the process of reading actively without having read a single chapter in our textbook. Read the piece through once. Write down what you understand. Read it through again. Look up what you don't understand. Read it through again.
The fact is that many students stop reading whatever is required for their courses because they don't "get" the first few lines. Ethics, philosophy, logic, sociology, and psychology texts may seem to be beyond their understanding, and so they stop reading. I contend that if a reader can simply read through a piece once without stopping and ignore what they think they don't know, that reader will be able to write down something about that piece. That something will then be clarified on the second read, or possibly the third.
This is when my students say, uh-huh. Right. I barely have time to read all this stuff once, and you're asking me to read two or three times? And I say, yes. That's what it takes until you become a better reader, and becoming a better reader will help you become a better writer. That's the goal.
Assignment for next Tuesday: write down one idea, word, phrase, or name from "Baseball and Writing" to look up. Look it up. Report back to the class. The idea behind this assignment is to get my students to take a small second look at the text through research. We'll see how it goes.
At the very least, I had fun introducing myself to my classes and going over the syllabi for the first time in a long time, I got to share some poetry with composition students, and I got them thinking right off the bat. Yay me!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
For the Love of Books
I'm back from my third of four residencies at Converse College, and, once again, I have nothing but good things to say. Hilarious readings by Leslie Pietrzyk and Keith Morris reminded me once again that literature is for everyone. Informative lectures by Susan Tekulve and Denise Duhamel pointed out the writing opportunities inherent in travel and the craft involved in using humor in poetry. But the session that I want to elaborate on here was presented by Betsy Teter on small press publishing.
Teter is the editor of Hub City Press, a nonprofit organization that "publishes well-crafted, high-quality works by new and established authors, with an emphasis on the Southern experience." There has been much talk about shopping local and buying from local artists, artisans, and farmers since the Occupy Wall Street movement began. Whatever your opinion of the Occupy phenomenon, it is worth noting that authors are among those who can benefit from this trend. Small presses are committed to publishing literature, and they are committed to promoting authors they believe in. This may or may not come along with commercial success. The books published by small presses and sold in independent bookstores like Hub City and Quail Ridge Books are largely not promoted or sold in the two big booksellers left in the US. In other words, your patronage of independent booksellers directly affects the writers working in your communities.
Some of the practical advice Teter offered to us were questions to ask small press publishers such as: Do you send out galleys? Do you send out review copies? How many review copies do you send? Teter's explanation of her process of sending review copies to get buzz going for a book was informative, and it showed her dedication to the authors Hub City publishes. When (yes when!) I publish a book, I can only hope that it is backed with the enthusiasm Teter showed in her presentation.
Read local. Buy local. Love books.
Teter is the editor of Hub City Press, a nonprofit organization that "publishes well-crafted, high-quality works by new and established authors, with an emphasis on the Southern experience." There has been much talk about shopping local and buying from local artists, artisans, and farmers since the Occupy Wall Street movement began. Whatever your opinion of the Occupy phenomenon, it is worth noting that authors are among those who can benefit from this trend. Small presses are committed to publishing literature, and they are committed to promoting authors they believe in. This may or may not come along with commercial success. The books published by small presses and sold in independent bookstores like Hub City and Quail Ridge Books are largely not promoted or sold in the two big booksellers left in the US. In other words, your patronage of independent booksellers directly affects the writers working in your communities.
Some of the practical advice Teter offered to us were questions to ask small press publishers such as: Do you send out galleys? Do you send out review copies? How many review copies do you send? Teter's explanation of her process of sending review copies to get buzz going for a book was informative, and it showed her dedication to the authors Hub City publishes. When (yes when!) I publish a book, I can only hope that it is backed with the enthusiasm Teter showed in her presentation.
Read local. Buy local. Love books.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Notes on the Lockdown
When I was about eight years old, my mom, my brother, and I were forced to lie face down on the floor of our local post office by gunmen armed with pistols fitted with silencers. Maybe this is why I took yesterday's lockdown at ECU seriously.
Maybe it's because I grew up in Los Angeles. Maybe it's because I have been around responsible gun owners all my life and have been taught gun safety. Maybe it's because, as a former high school teacher, I have been through lockdown training. Maybe it's because this picture
looks enough like a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder that I'm glad someone cared enough to call the police.
Maybe none of that matters.
What matters is that this is the world we live in. People do terrible things to each other. And while I recognize the openings for debate here, there isn't a whole lot we can do about it. What we can do, however, is take threats seriously.
I like to believe that I have a healthy sense of humor, but I don't think that any part of yesterday's lockdown was funny. Yes, it turned out that the man was carrying an umbrella, not an assault rifle, and thank goodness. But trivializing the situation while it is happening is going too far. While my students and I sat on the floor, by the cinderblock wall, out of the line of sight of all windows, we read posts on Twitter and Facebook, trying to keep abreast of what was happening. Out of a stream of 140 or so posts to the local news channel's breaking story about the lockdown, I'd say 70% of them were people fighting with each other about whether or not ECU had sent them an alert email, 20% were rumors about hostages, the number of gunmen, and where the police were, and the remaining 10% ridiculed students and police and noted how stupid people were in general. Several times, I had to calm my students down.
After we got the all clear alert, another professor asked me what I had done for the close to three hour incident. I replied that I had sat with my students on the floor of my classroom. This professor wanted to know why we were sitting on the floor.
I was stunned by this question. But it did explain why, at about hour two, we began to hear people walking around in the hallway and talking on their phones. We also heard people in another classroom watching YouTube videos, loudly. By hour two, enough people had Tweeted and Facebooked and texted and emailed that they were bored with the whole situation. And, apparently, there are lots of people who don't understand that walking around and making noise during a threat of this kind makes you a target.
I do not suggest that we live our lives in fear. I do suggest that we practice reasonable caution. Since I was the teacher, whatever my students' ages, I was in the position of authority. I felt responsible for their safety. As such, when the alert came in at 10:11 am, I directed my students to sit on the floor, turned of the projector and the lights, and asked everyone to remain quiet. They did.
Until the noise from the rest of our floor could not be ignored. Then my students started to get up, walk around, talk. What if the umbrella had been an assault rifle? Closer to my point, no one knew that it wasn't an assault rifle until hours after the all clear.
Maybe I should just take heart from the apparent fact that there are plenty of people who did not believe that the threat to students, faculty, and staff at ECU could possibly be real, and that there are still people out there who don't know what to do in the case of a lockdown.
Maybe it's because I grew up in Los Angeles. Maybe it's because I have been around responsible gun owners all my life and have been taught gun safety. Maybe it's because, as a former high school teacher, I have been through lockdown training. Maybe it's because this picture
looks enough like a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder that I'm glad someone cared enough to call the police.
Maybe none of that matters.
What matters is that this is the world we live in. People do terrible things to each other. And while I recognize the openings for debate here, there isn't a whole lot we can do about it. What we can do, however, is take threats seriously.
I like to believe that I have a healthy sense of humor, but I don't think that any part of yesterday's lockdown was funny. Yes, it turned out that the man was carrying an umbrella, not an assault rifle, and thank goodness. But trivializing the situation while it is happening is going too far. While my students and I sat on the floor, by the cinderblock wall, out of the line of sight of all windows, we read posts on Twitter and Facebook, trying to keep abreast of what was happening. Out of a stream of 140 or so posts to the local news channel's breaking story about the lockdown, I'd say 70% of them were people fighting with each other about whether or not ECU had sent them an alert email, 20% were rumors about hostages, the number of gunmen, and where the police were, and the remaining 10% ridiculed students and police and noted how stupid people were in general. Several times, I had to calm my students down.
After we got the all clear alert, another professor asked me what I had done for the close to three hour incident. I replied that I had sat with my students on the floor of my classroom. This professor wanted to know why we were sitting on the floor.
I was stunned by this question. But it did explain why, at about hour two, we began to hear people walking around in the hallway and talking on their phones. We also heard people in another classroom watching YouTube videos, loudly. By hour two, enough people had Tweeted and Facebooked and texted and emailed that they were bored with the whole situation. And, apparently, there are lots of people who don't understand that walking around and making noise during a threat of this kind makes you a target.
I do not suggest that we live our lives in fear. I do suggest that we practice reasonable caution. Since I was the teacher, whatever my students' ages, I was in the position of authority. I felt responsible for their safety. As such, when the alert came in at 10:11 am, I directed my students to sit on the floor, turned of the projector and the lights, and asked everyone to remain quiet. They did.
Until the noise from the rest of our floor could not be ignored. Then my students started to get up, walk around, talk. What if the umbrella had been an assault rifle? Closer to my point, no one knew that it wasn't an assault rifle until hours after the all clear.
Maybe I should just take heart from the apparent fact that there are plenty of people who did not believe that the threat to students, faculty, and staff at ECU could possibly be real, and that there are still people out there who don't know what to do in the case of a lockdown.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Oogeds!
CAPTCHA terms of the day:
nathoad n. a natty toad OK. That was lame. I don't know why, but when I saw this CAPTCHA, I immediately thought of Mr.Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland, based, of course, on The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Why is it again that some of my favorite childhood books described people (or anthropomorphized animals) in places that were completely unfamiliar to me? "A pastoral version of England" (thanks Wiki) is about as far as you can get from Gardena, CA. We set traps out for rats. Yes, we did.
orsabi slang a question meaning do you want soy sauce or wasabi? Lame again. I just can't resist these things, though. This CAPTCHA also brought to mind Obi-Wan Kenobi AND "savvy" of Johnny Depp/Captain Jack Sparrow fame. An interesting combination, that.
demancol n. This is, quite obviously, a new drug that will either bring out/tone down your inner demon or make the government's no-call list actually work.
oogeds Any takers? All I've got is a vowel switch for kicks of "eegads!" which makes as much sense as the rest of these.
And so, if you're still reading, this was my Sudoku, or "mental aerobics," for the day. If only actual aerobics were this much fun...
nathoad n. a natty toad OK. That was lame. I don't know why, but when I saw this CAPTCHA, I immediately thought of Mr.Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland, based, of course, on The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Why is it again that some of my favorite childhood books described people (or anthropomorphized animals) in places that were completely unfamiliar to me? "A pastoral version of England" (thanks Wiki) is about as far as you can get from Gardena, CA. We set traps out for rats. Yes, we did.
orsabi slang a question meaning do you want soy sauce or wasabi? Lame again. I just can't resist these things, though. This CAPTCHA also brought to mind Obi-Wan Kenobi AND "savvy" of Johnny Depp/Captain Jack Sparrow fame. An interesting combination, that.
demancol n. This is, quite obviously, a new drug that will either bring out/tone down your inner demon or make the government's no-call list actually work.
oogeds Any takers? All I've got is a vowel switch for kicks of "eegads!" which makes as much sense as the rest of these.
And so, if you're still reading, this was my Sudoku, or "mental aerobics," for the day. If only actual aerobics were this much fun...
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Front Porch Art Show
I spent last weekend with some girlfriends of mine in Norfolk, Virginia. Now this is a cool town. We watched the Admirals win a hockey game (tickets only $20!), ate fantastic tapas at Bodega on Granby Street ("Little Plates, Big Drinks!") and seafood at AW Shucks, and went to an art "show" in the Ghent district near the Virginia Zoo. This "show" is one of the Best Ideas Ever.
For you, my fellow artists and crafters out there, think about this scenario: you don't have to pay an entrance fee, pack up, drive, set up your booth, display your wares, and hope to your favorite deity that someone buys something. You are selling on your front porch. The entire neighborhood - at least ten blocks - is selling art and crafts on their front porches. Now, I'm not so naive as to believe that this would work everywhere. My front porch might as well be on Europa. But this show was just so...nice.
There were people walking around with their dogs and their kids and their friends, looking at (and buying!) art, and the artists appeared, overall, to be relaxed and happy with their front porch experiences. Most were having a glass or two and offering one to whomever happened by. My good friend Kelly gifted me with this print by artist Jennifer C Hilliard:
Such an amazing talent. I have linked her work to this blog. Check it out!
I'll close by paraphrasing a recent Facebook post by my friend Jennifer Thielen: If you really want to occupy Wall Street, buy from your local merchants, artists, artisans, and farmers. As romantic as the idea of the starving artist is, well, ya know, tapas at Bodega are really nice, too. : )
For you, my fellow artists and crafters out there, think about this scenario: you don't have to pay an entrance fee, pack up, drive, set up your booth, display your wares, and hope to your favorite deity that someone buys something. You are selling on your front porch. The entire neighborhood - at least ten blocks - is selling art and crafts on their front porches. Now, I'm not so naive as to believe that this would work everywhere. My front porch might as well be on Europa. But this show was just so...nice.
There were people walking around with their dogs and their kids and their friends, looking at (and buying!) art, and the artists appeared, overall, to be relaxed and happy with their front porch experiences. Most were having a glass or two and offering one to whomever happened by. My good friend Kelly gifted me with this print by artist Jennifer C Hilliard:
I'll close by paraphrasing a recent Facebook post by my friend Jennifer Thielen: If you really want to occupy Wall Street, buy from your local merchants, artists, artisans, and farmers. As romantic as the idea of the starving artist is, well, ya know, tapas at Bodega are really nice, too. : )
Friday, October 7, 2011
"Fall in love and have lots of sex"
This was Sir Salman Rushdie's advice for the freshman who had the nerve to get up during question and answer after Sir Rushdie's lecture Wednesday night and ask, "Um...I've been, like, sitting there, listening, and trying to come up with a question to ask you, and, um, like, I would be honored if you could give me some advice for my next four years and for, like, life." After a (for me, anticipatory) moment, Sir Rushdie smiled and graciously responded, "Fall in love and have lots of sex."
Rusdhie's lecture was nothing short of phenomenal. Its title was "Public Events, Private Lives: Literature and Politics in the Modern World." He began by briefly examining America's obsession with "trivia" as opposed to the "news." His humor in this examination; asking what Kim Kardashian actually does for a living, mentioning that Paris Hilton's 15 minutes, although over, greatly increased the name brand of her family's second-rate hotel business; set the tone for the evening. Rushdie had the audience listening and laughing while examining very serious issues revolving around writers and their work in today's world.
Rushdie raised the question of whether or not it is a writer's responsibility to address politics in his/her work. He prefaced his argument with the statement that he would no sooner tell a writer that he/she should always include politics than Rushdie would tell the writer that he/she should never include politics. However, he went on to point out that, in this information age, it is almost impossible to write a character who is not, in some way, directly affected by politics. One of his examples was that Jane Austen was writing during the Napoleonic Wars, but she never mentions war at all. Rushdie argues that the war did not affect her characters. "One's character determined one's fate." Rushdie argues that, today, one's fate is no longer determined by one's character. For example, outside forces determine whether or not you will keep your job, regardless of how strong your work ethic is. Therefore, modern writers almost cannot avoid writing "politically."
He said it a lot better than I am relaying it here. But the end result of Rushdie's lecture was, basically, telling writers, and everyone really, to speak up and speak out.
I encourage you to read Rushdie if you haven't already. When I read his novel The Moor's Last Sigh eleven years ago (!), it changed my life, literally. Rushdie writes about being hybrid, or his word from his lecture "fragmented," in one's identity. When we limit our definition of ourselves to "one thing," we narrow our vision and limit our capabilities. Rushdie grew up in India, a society of caste and strict religious definitions, and his characters rebel against the small boxes their societies put them in. In many cases, the characters are not successful in their rebellions.
Are we free, in today's America, to be who we are? Every part of who we are? Or are we forced to decide? Do "identity politics" limit the scope of what we can do and how we are perceived? Even worse, do identity politics limit how we perceive ourselves? This concept of being plural in a society that wants me easily labeled and filed is something I have struggled with since I can remember.
So, today, I am writing this blog not only to laud Sir Rushdie's lecture here at ECU, but also to speak out. I am tired of boxes and limits and pigeonholes. As Rushdie said (quoting Saul Bellow), "For God's sake, open the universe a little more!"
Rusdhie's lecture was nothing short of phenomenal. Its title was "Public Events, Private Lives: Literature and Politics in the Modern World." He began by briefly examining America's obsession with "trivia" as opposed to the "news." His humor in this examination; asking what Kim Kardashian actually does for a living, mentioning that Paris Hilton's 15 minutes, although over, greatly increased the name brand of her family's second-rate hotel business; set the tone for the evening. Rushdie had the audience listening and laughing while examining very serious issues revolving around writers and their work in today's world.
Rushdie raised the question of whether or not it is a writer's responsibility to address politics in his/her work. He prefaced his argument with the statement that he would no sooner tell a writer that he/she should always include politics than Rushdie would tell the writer that he/she should never include politics. However, he went on to point out that, in this information age, it is almost impossible to write a character who is not, in some way, directly affected by politics. One of his examples was that Jane Austen was writing during the Napoleonic Wars, but she never mentions war at all. Rushdie argues that the war did not affect her characters. "One's character determined one's fate." Rushdie argues that, today, one's fate is no longer determined by one's character. For example, outside forces determine whether or not you will keep your job, regardless of how strong your work ethic is. Therefore, modern writers almost cannot avoid writing "politically."
He said it a lot better than I am relaying it here. But the end result of Rushdie's lecture was, basically, telling writers, and everyone really, to speak up and speak out.
I encourage you to read Rushdie if you haven't already. When I read his novel The Moor's Last Sigh eleven years ago (!), it changed my life, literally. Rushdie writes about being hybrid, or his word from his lecture "fragmented," in one's identity. When we limit our definition of ourselves to "one thing," we narrow our vision and limit our capabilities. Rushdie grew up in India, a society of caste and strict religious definitions, and his characters rebel against the small boxes their societies put them in. In many cases, the characters are not successful in their rebellions.
Are we free, in today's America, to be who we are? Every part of who we are? Or are we forced to decide? Do "identity politics" limit the scope of what we can do and how we are perceived? Even worse, do identity politics limit how we perceive ourselves? This concept of being plural in a society that wants me easily labeled and filed is something I have struggled with since I can remember.
So, today, I am writing this blog not only to laud Sir Rushdie's lecture here at ECU, but also to speak out. I am tired of boxes and limits and pigeonholes. As Rushdie said (quoting Saul Bellow), "For God's sake, open the universe a little more!"
Friday, September 16, 2011
Are you a glombrob?
Just now, I posted a comment on one of my students' discussions blogs, and the CAPTCHA word that came up was "glombrob." First, doesn't that sound like it should really be a word? Glombrob: would it be a noun or a verb? n. a brob, or blob with some definition (because of the hard r sound), that gloms on to...a person? v. the act of a mob of bees glomming on to a person or idea...no, probably not. I'm going with noun for now.
I often cannot read these CAPTCHA phrases, and therefore am sometimes mistaken for a spambot. Ok. How does that last sentence even make sense? In my effort to write this blog, I searched for the term used for those nonsense words that you have to type in to prove you're not a computer. CAPTCHA actually stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart," hence the all caps. Didja know that? Kind of convenient that it also sounds like "capture." Then I had to look up the word "turing" which I will not attempt to explain in this post. Then there's the fact that there are actually such things as spambots, and that I can be mistaken for one if I fail to read the word "glombrob" and correctly type it in. Perhaps I'm showing my age a bit, but really? I'm picturing a bunch of tiny robots that smell like potted meat running around, breaking into people's blogs and posting things like "Your mama dresses you funny."
And by the way, spambots are web crawlers that harvest email addresses which are then sold and used to send spam. Let's look at the language here: web crawlers and harvest. Forgive me for tangenting (and yes, I'm giving tangent verb status) to the Matrix. Wherein Keanu Reeves is the chosen one. Yikes-o-rama.
So...make an effort to use your CAPTCHA phrase today, and you, too can be a glombrob: n. a person who gloms on to a blog and/or blog topic that contains numerous misspellings and/or mistaken ideas.
I often cannot read these CAPTCHA phrases, and therefore am sometimes mistaken for a spambot. Ok. How does that last sentence even make sense? In my effort to write this blog, I searched for the term used for those nonsense words that you have to type in to prove you're not a computer. CAPTCHA actually stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart," hence the all caps. Didja know that? Kind of convenient that it also sounds like "capture." Then I had to look up the word "turing" which I will not attempt to explain in this post. Then there's the fact that there are actually such things as spambots, and that I can be mistaken for one if I fail to read the word "glombrob" and correctly type it in. Perhaps I'm showing my age a bit, but really? I'm picturing a bunch of tiny robots that smell like potted meat running around, breaking into people's blogs and posting things like "Your mama dresses you funny."
And by the way, spambots are web crawlers that harvest email addresses which are then sold and used to send spam. Let's look at the language here: web crawlers and harvest. Forgive me for tangenting (and yes, I'm giving tangent verb status) to the Matrix. Wherein Keanu Reeves is the chosen one. Yikes-o-rama.
So...make an effort to use your CAPTCHA phrase today, and you, too can be a glombrob: n. a person who gloms on to a blog and/or blog topic that contains numerous misspellings and/or mistaken ideas.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Why Hurricane Irene made me think about John Cusack...Yep
With apologies to Mark Twain: Letter from the Earth: humans are not in charge.
Well, dang.
As I write this, the water in Tranter's Creek is receding. Our small pier has floated away, several large trees and their branches are lying around the yard and on our outbuildings, our power is back on, and the mosquitoes are breeding. On the way to work this morning, I saw houses destroyed by falling trees and branches, storm debris everywhere, and wood neatly cut and stacked on curbs awaiting pickup. In my first class this morning, one of my students talked about losing her car to a tree, and another student talked about losing her home to the Pamlico River. On the news, people in Vermont and in North Carolina are stranded on little islands that did not exist before Irene. Roads are washed away. Homes are lifted off their foundations and destroyed. Patterson, New Jersey is flooded. People across the Northeast have lost everything they owned. Some have lost their lives.
Lately, it seems that just about every day, nature brings her fury. We are inundated with scenes of destruction through our televisions, our computers, and our phones. What amazes me is that we refuse to give up. We humans are determined to go on, to rebuild, to live our lives despite, or perhaps to spite, Mother Nature.
I'm a bit at a loss here in this post. Thoughts of 2012 keep crossing my mind, and not just of the Mayan apocalypse variety that people are talking about every time there is a major natural disaster these days, but also of the film variety with John Cusack, who I have loved since Sixteen Candles. And what does that have to do with the price of apples? I don't want to make jokes or make light of Hurricane Irene. I know what it did to people and their lives. But my brain just...goes...there. John Cusack playing a dork and wearing a light on his forehead. And perhaps this is what we humans do in response to not being in charge.
Or perhaps the synapses in my brain are faulty.
Well, dang.
As I write this, the water in Tranter's Creek is receding. Our small pier has floated away, several large trees and their branches are lying around the yard and on our outbuildings, our power is back on, and the mosquitoes are breeding. On the way to work this morning, I saw houses destroyed by falling trees and branches, storm debris everywhere, and wood neatly cut and stacked on curbs awaiting pickup. In my first class this morning, one of my students talked about losing her car to a tree, and another student talked about losing her home to the Pamlico River. On the news, people in Vermont and in North Carolina are stranded on little islands that did not exist before Irene. Roads are washed away. Homes are lifted off their foundations and destroyed. Patterson, New Jersey is flooded. People across the Northeast have lost everything they owned. Some have lost their lives.
Lately, it seems that just about every day, nature brings her fury. We are inundated with scenes of destruction through our televisions, our computers, and our phones. What amazes me is that we refuse to give up. We humans are determined to go on, to rebuild, to live our lives despite, or perhaps to spite, Mother Nature.
I'm a bit at a loss here in this post. Thoughts of 2012 keep crossing my mind, and not just of the Mayan apocalypse variety that people are talking about every time there is a major natural disaster these days, but also of the film variety with John Cusack, who I have loved since Sixteen Candles. And what does that have to do with the price of apples? I don't want to make jokes or make light of Hurricane Irene. I know what it did to people and their lives. But my brain just...goes...there. John Cusack playing a dork and wearing a light on his forehead. And perhaps this is what we humans do in response to not being in charge.
Or perhaps the synapses in my brain are faulty.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Help me Dexter Morgan...you're my only hope.
***SPOILER ALERT***
If you have not seen episode one of True Blood season 4, and you plan to, do not read this post!!!
In an earlier post, I admitted to being a big fan of all things vampire. So it was with much excitement that I waited for the start of last night's season opener of HBO's True Blood. Let's leave aside the fact that the writers chose not to follow the perfectly good, and sufficiently full of HBO level sex and shock value, plot line that Charlaine Harris laid out in her Sookie Stackhouse series upon which the show is based. We pretty much knew that was trashed after Lafayette got, well, not dead in the first season. A very happy choice - love his character! But last night's episode...seriously? To quote "My Sassy Gay Friend" (whose videos you might want to check out on YouTube), "What, what, what are you doing?"
For those of you who have read the books, when Claudine showed up at the end of last season ostensibly to take Sookie away to Fairy Land, and she was decidedly NOT Claudine-like, I knew that something was truly amiss. Why take a character whose curves would thwart a Ferrari and turn her into Earth Mother? Last night, as D and I sat watching the first few scenes of Fairy Land, we turned to each other and said, simultaneously, "This is like that episode of Star Trek.." Remember the one where all the aliens were young, beautiful, and totally naive? There's one in the original and one in Next Generation - take your pick - that was Fairy Land. Cheese city. And then...they served everyone "light fruits." Glowing orbs of honey colored light shaped like persimmons and served by beautiful fairies in GrecoRoman attire. I am not making this up. And of course, if you ate of the fruit, you would lose all track of time and could not leave Fairy Land. Hadn't these people read the Odyssey? The myth of Persephone? The Bible? Seen Percy Jackson? Think once, think twice, think...don't eat the fruit. Although, in Eden, A&E did gain knowledge, but that's a post for another day.
Then...the fairies turned evil and Sookie ended up somewhere in Joshua Tree and she had to jump into a deep abyss to get back to Kansas...I mean BonTemps...where...wait for it...an entire year had passed. This weak plot point/cop out served to allow the writers to fast forward through BonTemps time and completely change everyone's basic character. Andy Bellefleur is addicted to V? Sure. Jason is the responsible cop? AND he's responsible for all of the inbred inhabitants of Hot Shot, even though Crystal is nowhere to be found? Um...ok. Aunt Petunia Dursley (Fiona Shaw) plays a witch who brings her parakeet back to life only with the addition of Lafayette, who is apparently a powerful brujo, to her coven...wait...did I say Aunt Petunia? From Harry Potter? Yes, I did! Bill is the King of Louisiana? Yep! His hair is cut differently, even though vampires' hair stays exactly the same as when they die according to this mythos. Ok, I know that was a geek moment. Eric owns Sookie's house because he was the only one who knew she wasn't dead... I can't go on. The sheer amount of cheese is overwhelming. Oh! I almost forgot! Tara is a lesbian cage fighter named Toni!
!!!!!
!
There are only three television shows that I actually set aside time to watch regularly. All three have short runs: RuPaul's Drag Race, Dexter, and True Blood. Psychoanalyze as you will. Perhaps the universe is telling me I need to do something else on summer Sunday nights. Sookie!
If you have not seen episode one of True Blood season 4, and you plan to, do not read this post!!!
In an earlier post, I admitted to being a big fan of all things vampire. So it was with much excitement that I waited for the start of last night's season opener of HBO's True Blood. Let's leave aside the fact that the writers chose not to follow the perfectly good, and sufficiently full of HBO level sex and shock value, plot line that Charlaine Harris laid out in her Sookie Stackhouse series upon which the show is based. We pretty much knew that was trashed after Lafayette got, well, not dead in the first season. A very happy choice - love his character! But last night's episode...seriously? To quote "My Sassy Gay Friend" (whose videos you might want to check out on YouTube), "What, what, what are you doing?"
For those of you who have read the books, when Claudine showed up at the end of last season ostensibly to take Sookie away to Fairy Land, and she was decidedly NOT Claudine-like, I knew that something was truly amiss. Why take a character whose curves would thwart a Ferrari and turn her into Earth Mother? Last night, as D and I sat watching the first few scenes of Fairy Land, we turned to each other and said, simultaneously, "This is like that episode of Star Trek.." Remember the one where all the aliens were young, beautiful, and totally naive? There's one in the original and one in Next Generation - take your pick - that was Fairy Land. Cheese city. And then...they served everyone "light fruits." Glowing orbs of honey colored light shaped like persimmons and served by beautiful fairies in GrecoRoman attire. I am not making this up. And of course, if you ate of the fruit, you would lose all track of time and could not leave Fairy Land. Hadn't these people read the Odyssey? The myth of Persephone? The Bible? Seen Percy Jackson? Think once, think twice, think...don't eat the fruit. Although, in Eden, A&E did gain knowledge, but that's a post for another day.
Then...the fairies turned evil and Sookie ended up somewhere in Joshua Tree and she had to jump into a deep abyss to get back to Kansas...I mean BonTemps...where...wait for it...an entire year had passed. This weak plot point/cop out served to allow the writers to fast forward through BonTemps time and completely change everyone's basic character. Andy Bellefleur is addicted to V? Sure. Jason is the responsible cop? AND he's responsible for all of the inbred inhabitants of Hot Shot, even though Crystal is nowhere to be found? Um...ok. Aunt Petunia Dursley (Fiona Shaw) plays a witch who brings her parakeet back to life only with the addition of Lafayette, who is apparently a powerful brujo, to her coven...wait...did I say Aunt Petunia? From Harry Potter? Yes, I did! Bill is the King of Louisiana? Yep! His hair is cut differently, even though vampires' hair stays exactly the same as when they die according to this mythos. Ok, I know that was a geek moment. Eric owns Sookie's house because he was the only one who knew she wasn't dead... I can't go on. The sheer amount of cheese is overwhelming. Oh! I almost forgot! Tara is a lesbian cage fighter named Toni!
!!!!!
!
There are only three television shows that I actually set aside time to watch regularly. All three have short runs: RuPaul's Drag Race, Dexter, and True Blood. Psychoanalyze as you will. Perhaps the universe is telling me I need to do something else on summer Sunday nights. Sookie!
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