birdhouses of thought

And Evil-Jesus was in her Heart....

2009-11-17T12:17:00.007-05:00

I have two daughters. Although sometimes they exhibit extremely annoying behaviors and sass the living daylights out of me, at other times their witticisms entertain me greatly.

I thought I'd share.

I might come back here and update occasionally.

1. When our oldest (who is now 9) was about 3 years old, my husband was driving her to preschool, and she asked him why some of the things she did kept getting her into trouble. He tried to explain different concepts of right and wrong to her, including some discussion of God, Jesus and morality. She then patiently explained to him that "evil Jesus was in [her] heart" and that was why she did it.

2. When our second child was born, big sis was ecstatic! Every morning for months, she would jump up and down in our living room as I brought her sister downstairs for the day, "The baby is coming to town!" She would cry over and over, "The baby is coming to town!"

3. I am a passionate breast-feeder (or I was....). My older daughter had some speech problems, and kept talking about her little baby sister really liking Mommy's nibbles. Yes, she would say this in public!

4. Speaking of breast-feeding, inevitably when my husband would pick up the baby, the baby would decide that she really wanted mommy! She turned to me knowingly and said, "She doesn't like Daddy's hairy nibbles!"

My younger daughter, who just turned 5, keeps us giggling, although she hates it when we don't take her seriously.

5. Again, the God/Jesus conversation.... I woke up one morning recently, with her beside me in bed. She said, "Mommy, how can God walk on water?" I said, "Well, I suppose God can do whatever God wants to do." She shook her head and said, "Well, I don't think God can juggle."

6. She was having many nightmares and having trouble sleeping for several months. One morning, a few days ago, I had to wake her up early to get her sister to school. She looked very crossly at me and said, "I was having a very good dream, and YOU crashed it, Mommy!" (As if it was a party that I clearly wasn't invited to.)

More daughterisms to come . . .

Tuppence in Chicago

2009-06-15T18:59:00.008-04:00

Let me get one thing straight: I'm not a city girl.

Let me get another thing straight: I like to visit cities occasionally, and glean their culture and learn their lessons.

My family and I just got back from a short trip to Chicago. My husband was at the AMA meeting (didn't get to see Obama, though....we left right before he came.) Some of the time he was in meetings and some of the time he got to sight-see with us.

We hit the following attractions: Millennium Park, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Navy Pier, The Sears Tower (skydeck), The Cadillac Palace Theater (to see Mary Poppins) and a double-decker bus tour of the city (on a nice, sunny afternoon). We sampled the world-renowned Chicago-style pizza at Giordano's and hot dogs at the Navy Pier vendors (upon which no one warned not to put ketchup until it was too late). We froze our butts off, since 75 degrees in the windy city doesn't really feel like 75 degrees, and 65 degrees in the rain feels very, very cold!

I didn't imagine my daughters would like the Art Institute. I drug them along because it housed my all-time favorite painting: Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. However, they loved it. They loved the layout of the place and the modern art and all of the lights and designs. There was even some interactive art that captivated them.

The girls thought the double-decker bus tour was fantastic. We had a fantastic day for it! The architecture of Chicago is really second to none. Each building and skyscraper is clearly trying to outdo the one beside it. We saw buildings that rippled like water, that spiraled like corncobs, that jutted straight up like monolithic and foreboding rectangles, that hearkened back to a Gothic age, that resembled castles, art nouveau, art deco, modern and ultra modern.

It's really amazing how all the different cities in the U.S. have a different flair and a different personality. New York and Chicago are very, very different towns, as are L.A., Atlanta, Washington D.C. and San Francisco. Seeing these cities make me so proud of our nation.

It also makes me sad, because in all of these cities, my family and I have seen the homeless pulling their greasy blankets around them, too ashamed usually to even beg. I rarely see them in rural America, although they are there too. You don't sight see pedestrian-style in rural America, so you're not forced to step over the sleeping dispossessed.

My daughters were struck by them as well. They didn't even know what questions to ask about the homeless Americans of the streets.

But when we went to see Mary Poppins, the Broadway in Chicago musical, the scene with the Bird Lady haunted all of us. It was more poignant, somehow, for me as an adult than it was when I was a child. When I saw this movie years and years ago, I thought the bird lady was just being nice to the birds. I didn't consider that feeding the birds the breadcrumbs, purchased for tuppence a bag, was her sole source of income.

While we were watching this scene, my older daughter turned to me and said, "Mommy, she's homeless, isn't she?"

I said, "Yes, she is."

"Why does she want us to feed the birds?" My daughter asked.

"Because if you pay her for the bird food, she can have the money to live, honey." I answered.

"Oh. . . are you crying a little, Mommy?" She asked.

"Yes, a little." I responded.

I don't want to count up how much money I spent while we visited Chicago - on airplane tickets, accommodations, meals in restaurants, souvenirs, tours and incidentals. I don't want to count it up because I feel guilty about it.

Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul's
The little old bird woman comes
In her own special way, to the people she calls,
"Come, buy my bags full of crumbs;
Come feed the little birds,
Show them you care
And you'll be glad if you do
Their young ones are hungry
Their nests are so bare
All it takes is tuppence from you
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag
Feed the birds," that's what she cries
While overhead, her birds fill the skies

All around the cathedral the saints and apostles
Look down as she sells her wares
Although you can't see it,
You know they are smiling
Each time someone shows that he cares

Though her words are simple and few
Listen, listen, she's calling to you
"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag"

(I'm proud of the photograph above: Twilight in Chicago - taken by me, 6/11/09)

My Educational Platform - Plank #3: Media Literacy - So now that we're in the 21st Century, what do we do?

2009-06-08T12:47:00.004-04:00

I truly believe that any education that does not involve interface with a computer these days is selling the student short.The digital world is the world we live, play, work and socialize in.And it’s not enough to be able to word-process, surf the net, send an email and play games online, you have to be able to know how to find the exact information you need, exactly when you need it.This goes way beyond a Google search, this involves thinking critically about information.The web is a universe unto itself and growing exponentially.

Schools need to embrace it as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic.It’s as simple as that.Like reading, writing and math, each skill set in media literacy is built upon learning the last.You can specialize and submerge yourself into specific areas, but you need a fundamental background in all.Operating a computer connected to the internet is as important as learning how to drive a car, and possibly more so, since you can telecommute from home if you have a computer but no car.I found a definition of exactly what media literacy is, or should be, and offer it below:

The definition most often cited in the US is a succinct sentence hammered out by participants at the 1992 Aspen Media Literacy Leadership Institute:

Media Literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms.

Definitions, however, evolve over time and a more robust definition is now needed to situate media literacy in the context of its importance for the education of students in a 21st century media culture. CML now uses this expanded definition:

Media Literacy is a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy. (Center for Media Literacy)

The digital age, unfortunately, is causing an even further separation between us and the developing world.When we say that the internet connects the world, what we really mean is that the internet connects the developed and free world.I have a friend in Beijing, a professor, who spent several months here as a Fulbright Scholar.He opened a Facebook account before he left, to keep in touch with us as he goes back to work at his university, but he uses a pseudonym to fly beneath the radar of Chinese censorship.Although he is Chinese and wants to help move China forward, he claims that he can’t do it from within China, because its government is so stifling and corrupt.

And it is hard for my children, who are growing up in a three-TV, three-computer, two-ipod, one-Nintendo DS, one wii, and a built-in DVD player in our car- household, to understand what it could be like having to walk miles each day for drinking water, to go hungry and cold, and to not be able to read, let alone have the privilege of a public education.I’m hoping that media literacy education can help us find a way to use our media tools to help our disadvantaged brethren the world over.

My Educational Platform - Plank #2: Liberal Arts -Is Liberal a Bad Thing?

2009-06-08T12:36:00.005-04:00

It keeps coming around in circles:the philosophical struggle between educators who believe in a liberal arts education model and those who believe in the technical, or job-preparedness model.

I could write a book about this, but I’m going to limit myself here to two main issues:1.Liberal arts is not what it used to be. and2.To quote Robert Heinlein:“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

Many arts students balk at the idea of taking in-depth mathematics or sciences courses, just as many science students balk at the idea of taking upper level literature or humanities courses, but the point of a liberal arts education is the concept of the fully rounded individual.You really never know what information will be helpful or useful to you and when.My dad always used to tell me that algebra taught you how to think and learning it taught you how to learn.I may have hated it, but it did make a part of my mind work that I didn’t tend to use otherwise.The same is true for my friends who were in calculus and advanced physics when they had to take Shakespearean literature.They were using mental muscles that they didn’t want to use, but it was good for them.

The concept of a “liberal arts education” got a bad rap with working class America because “they [were] the arts appropriate to free persons, that is, persons who do not have to work for a living and have the leisure to pursue their interests in literature or philosophy.”(Wayne Bivens-Tatum:The Usefulness of the Liberal Arts)My father, who is a very politically conservative and shrewd and smart businessman, went to a business school on the G.I. bill after the Korean war.He financed my “liberal arts” education, but not without picking on me ruthlessly for becoming “liberal” for going to that school.But that is really no longer what a liberal arts education is.Today, employers are looking for individuals who can think themselves out of a crisis, who can meet a problem with creativity and finesse, who know how to learn new tools, who can look at historical and social precedent and interpret future trends, and who are strong communicators, both written and oral:in short, they want technologically-savvy people who have had a strong liberal arts education. (Think of Anne Hathaway's character in The Devil Wears Prada.)

My husband is a very, very good physician.He is one of a dying breed:a primary care doctor.It’s dying because insurance plans don’t like to cover preventative care, and people like to feel like they’re being treated by a “specialist.”However, primary care physicians ARE specialists:they are specialists in the whole of the body.Tim went to a medical school that was entrenched in the family medicine bio-psycho-social model – meaning the whole of a person’s physical health needs to be treated in relation to that person’s life, family, work, and mind.The human body, when opened up, appears to be a tangled and messy amalgamation of gloppy stuff – not sharply delineated, specific organs.The body works together as a whole, not discretely.Incidentally, my husband had a strong liberal arts education.He majored in theater and dance.One of his good friends in medical school was a philosophy major.Yes, they both got the requisite math and science they needed, but the whole of their education was so much more.

One of my biggest sadnesses as a community college instructor is to see students who have short-changed their education, or had their education short-changed over the years, now try to make a go of higher education without the prior knowledge to do well. Sometimes we have older students on the trade act who have just a few short semesters to get trained in a new career before they're funding gets taken away. This is battling really bad odds for them and for me, their teacher. Most of them have developmental needs. Most of them have been out of school so long, they can feel their mental muscles complaining over their school work. Many of them don't have the media literacy, the writing skills, or the math skills necessary to be trained in ANY decent career path. It's sobering and frightening.

Frequently I get recent high school graduates who never applied themselves to school a day in their lives, for whatever reason, show up the first day of class and think they're going to make it as "college" students. Some of them show up in English 080, and can't figure out why they ended up there. I've told all of these students that I wish I could go back in time to when they were children and somehow turn them into readers, real readers who read for pleasure - who see education as an adventure, not a torture. What I really and truly wish I could do is get them to embrace education for its own sake, because like I said before, you never know what piece of knowledge is going to be valuable to you at some future point in your life and career.

My Educational Platform - Plank #1: Ability Tracking - Birds on a Wire

2009-06-08T12:26:00.005-04:00

(We've been asked to write up our educational platform in the course I'm taking for my graduate certificate in online instruction. I could write a book about this, but I'm gonna keep it to three "planks" in my platform for now.)

The Story:

I was a bright child. However, when I was in kindergarten and first grade, I scored consistently poor- to average in my coursework. My parents were befuddled, and I was frustrated. I was "tracked" into a lower (not upper) level curriculum. This curriculum was slower and not as challenging...and certainly not as interesting. I continued to do poorly, even in the "easier" curriculum.
My parents knew me and knew I was capable of doing better. They were so confused. They had conferences with my teachers; nothing seemed to help.
One day, I was taking a walk with mom and dad down our gravel road on a lovely early evening after dinner. I happened to glance up at the telephone lines and see something I couldn't identify. I asked my parents what those black dots were up there on the lines. They looked in the direction I was pointing and saw me squinting up at a troop of birds flapping their wings - which I could see only as dark blurry dots. It all became clear - to them, not to me - that their bright little girl simply needed glasses to correct astigmatism and near-sightedness. After I got the glasses and could see clearly for the first time in years (I never even knew the world could be so sharp and focused) I started to make high scores in all of my coursework.
But I remained tracked in the lower level for several grades regardless. Untracking me, or "re"tracking me was like steering the Titanic. Once you're labeled mediocre, that's how you continue to be perceived in the public schools. It wasn't until a particularly feisty 4th grade teacher petitioned for me to be put in a higher level in 5th grade that I got in with the bright kid crowd...and stayed there until I graduated, with honors, from high school.

My Experiences Since Then:

That story no doubt would leave readers to believe that I think ability tracking is inherently wrong. I do not. One of the hardest things for a teacher to deal with effectively is teaching a class full of students with a large range of ability levels. (My grandma did it in a one-room school house in West Virginia.) You can make all kinds of arguments for how the bright kids are supposed to teach the not-so-bright kids, but then, how is that fair to the bright kids? We know that kids who are not challenged in school tend to act out. We know that kids who are overwhelmed in school tend to act out. I’ve taught adults in developmental English classes who range from barely literate to just a point away from assessing into ENG 111 – how do I meet the needs of both and assess them fairly???

This being said, if we are going to separate out kids and adults based on their ability levels, we must bear three things in mind: 1. These levels are not and should not be thought of as permanent. You can assess out of them. (Upwards or downwards.) 2. We should not stick our new and unproven teachers in the lower levels, but rather our most talented and proven teachers – since the remedial programs require the most teaching talent and skill. 3. We need to build true learning communities regardless of the students’ skill levels. Learning must be a challenging but fun and uplifting environment. This will be no simple task, since kids and adult who are placed in “remedial” classes tend to already be antagonistic towards formal education. (Usually because they have been marginalized by it in the past.)

Crappy Hypothyroidism

2009-06-08T12:25:00.000-04:00

Figured out why I was sooooooooo tired (besides stress and work).....my thyroid levels are way off.....trying to get the medication back on track now.

Wish me luck.

too tired

2009-02-19T11:41:00.001-05:00

I'm too tired to blog.

I'm gonna take another break.

birdhouses of thought says goodbye for now.

My new friend is leaving . . .

2009-01-15T14:56:00.006-05:00

So my friend Yongjia, a colleague serving as a fellow from China this year, is planning a big Chinese New Year celebration. We're all getting into planning the party for the year of the Ox. I'm taking him to Party City tomorrow to gather decorations. He's going to cook dumplings and download some music. We're going to play poker, treat the children with good luck money bags, and wear red underwear!

I live in a very small southern town, and we teach together at a community college. I gotta give props to Yongjia for deciding to spend his fellowship in absolute middle America, rather than a big shiny city. He's seeing laid-off Americans struggle through remedial college courses, struggle to pay for gasoline, and elect the first ever president of color. He's a cultural anthropologist, soaking up everything around him every single day that he's here. He came over to our house for Christmas Eve dinner and even went to church with us. My friends and colleagues and I took him to the Renaissance Fair and his first drive thru. We managed to get Yongjia to quit smoking, fed him turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes for the first time, and had him over to to micro-brew some beer. We have explained our expressions, our beliefs and our customs, and he's done his best to explain his. All in all, it's been one of the best examples of multicultural interpersonal communication I've ever seen.

And, the interesting thing about it is that he doesn't want to leave now.

He's excited to be going home to see his wife, but that's about all. China makes him unhappy. He feels oppressed there. I asked him if it was meaningful to him to go back to China and try to change it for the better, and he said that it wasn't possible for one man to do so. He views the government leaders there as corrupt. He came to our Halloween party and got to vote on best costume - joking that this was the first time he was ever able to vote. Interestingly enough, he won for best costume as well - dressing up as Zhong Kui, the Chinese Ghost Warrior.

He told me today that his mother thinks he's getting too fat, eating our American food. I laughed and told him that this was the opposite of the traditional American mother, who tends to want to feed you until you pop. (Or at least my mom does.) Of course, I reminded him that the quitting smoking probably had more to do with him eating more than his being in America, and surely a few extra pounds are better than carcinogens, right?

But I worry for Yongjia. I don't want his inquisitiveness and sense of humor swallowed up by censorship. I don't want his personal and professional choices to be limited by his government. I don't want his opportunities to decline or disappear entirely. In short, I want him to have the opportunities he would surely have here.

I plan to continue communicating with Yongjia after he returns to China next month - my new e-pal. Maybe the shrinking of the world through electronic communication will help ease his transition back into Manchurian culture. He tells us that his university will be sending another fellow, this time a woman, to take his place here, teaching his Chinese and cultural studies courses. I hope she can hold a candle to his friendliness and charm.

In the end, I'm sure she will be great. She'll be an individual, not like any other Chinese citizen. She'll be herself, with plenty of things for us to teach her and plenty of things for us to learn from her.

But I'll really miss hanging out with Yongjia.

好运气！

Good luck, Yongjia

And, to top it off, I'll be 37 in 9 short months . . .

2009-01-05T13:07:00.006-05:00

2009 seems so odd to me.

It's an awkward-sounding year. 2000 was nice and round. 2008 was a big and crazy election year. 2010 sounds so fascinating and science-fictiony. But 2009 dawns bulky and worrisome for me.

I visited Washington D.C. over the holidays, and it's gearing up for the biggest event this side of the American Revolution - the inauguration of Barack Obama. Regardless of my or others' political views, my greatest feeling as we near January 20th is that I am fearful for the safety of our nation's capital. Not just the architecture and our various assortment of national treasures, monuments, museums, and government leaders, but for the untold scores of souls that will be descending upon the Potomac's shores to be part of this historic occasion. I can't help but think "What if all the safety measures, anti-terrorism plans, and military might can't stop an attack on the US on this day?" What if the unbelievable happened? What if the man upon whom so many have invested their future is destroyed before he can bring about his change? What if this gathering of our nations' leaders is wiped out? What if the 2-4 million Americans expected to attend are killed in one fell swoop?

Would this be the end of our nation?

Heady thought, that. I shuddered as I typed it just now. I don't know whether I really believe it could happen, but I find myself making myself think about it.

But say that it doesn't happen. What then? If all goes according to plan, and the inauguration goes well and happily, and Obama's presidency begins (relatively) smoothly, and Comedy Central loses the majority of its entertainment fodder, and we all go back into our daily lives, what then? What does 2009 possibly have in store?

I cannot speak for anyone but myself. I plan on making 2009 a year of resolution and restrategizing. I need to get myself healthy again, by taking better care of myself and making more time for my kids. I need to work smarter instead of harder. I need to pray for more patience and wisdom to deal with my personal and professional life. I need to enjoy life beyond simply struggling to live it.

2009 is the year of my 15th undergraduate college reunion. It's the year of my 14th wedding anniversary. It's the year I turn 37, my oldest daughter turns 9, my youngest daughter turns 5 (ack!) and my husband turns 40! But I'm not there yet. I still cling strongly to 36. I have little desire to see my children leave 8 and 4, and, although I have some preliminary plans for celebrating my husband's 40th, I'm a long way away from taking action on them.

In the meantime, I'm in the middle of an academic school year. I don't generally think of the year as a January - December affair - I'm on the August - May plan. I'm in the middle of fixing the courses that I taught last semester, making them better for my spring semester students. I'm in the middle of a new series of books that I seem to be enjoying reading. (The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart - juv fiction.) I'm in the middle of trying to figure out how I'm going to work in the energy and determination to exercise every day. (It's January 5th, and, since it's only now a Monday, I still haven't officially started that resolution yet...... check back with me next posting to see how that's going.) I'm in the middle of remembering myself as a young, exuberant woman, and imagining myself as an old, wise (but tired) one.

2009 is the year for me to face the reality that I'm no longer young, but I refuse to be old. (I believe Marilyn Monroe was 36 when she decided she'd stop there; I don't agree with the suicide-as-youth-preservation approach.) It's the year for me to be kind to others, pray for the safety and advancement of our nation and our nation's hopes and dreams, and do my part to help advance those hopes and dreams. I like the future. I look forward to finishing a novel someday, seeing my children become teenagers (sort of) and getting a woman who knows what she's doing into the White House's center seat.

But it's still an awkward-sounding year. I wrote a check this morning and dated it appropriately, but it took a lot of concentration to do so. I'm certain it will be 2010 before I've decided to fully embrace this awkward and odd year - 2009.

But cheers, anyway - a bit belatedly. Welcome to 2009!

It's an allegory, really!

2008-11-24T21:07:00.006-05:00

Okay - good Lord, it's been A LONG time. So here I am. It's nearly Thanksgiving. I'm blogging again.

What gives?

Well, it's nearing the end of the (teaching) semester. I have a million papers to grade. Time to procrastinate - n'est-ce pas?

I have become an addict. No, it's not alcohol, pills or sex. It's not porn or jogging. It's not even Doritos - although those can be kinda tasty. No, I'm addicted to a fictional series. Yes, it is Twilight. (and New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn and the unpublished Midnight Sun.) Stop laughing. Yes, I know I'm 36 years old.

Let me explain. First off, I'm only one year older and have one child fewer than Stephenie Meyer - my new personal hero. I can relate to how she got started writing the series. (I have a novel of my own - unfinished, mind you - that had a similar conception. If you don't know Ms. Meyer's story of how Twilight came to be, link here. I may not be a teen aged girl, but I remember what it was like to be one, and I have a penchant for vampires too. I love a good story full of complex characterization and romance as much as the next gal. I love a story that won't let me go to sleep at night.

There's a forum that I've joined called Twilightmoms. Read its opening credo, and you know what my addiction is like. I too have mountains of laundry and undone work, ignored the cats' litter box and sloppy children, because my free time of late has been devoted to OME! (Oh my Edward!) I've philosophically joined Team Cullen, the La Push Cliff Diving Team, the Alice Fan club (who would bet against her?) and the Bella bandwagon.

Yes, I saw the film. Yes, I loved it. My husband did too, thank God, because if he hadn't, we wouldn't be speaking, I think. He's going to read the books now - now that he knows they're safe for his consumption. And he's a 38 year old physician.

We're grown ups. What gives? Twilight has Harry Potter qualities. It has the capacity to transcend young adult fiction and fantasy labeling. It incites a fervor that makes me proud to be literate. I'm excited by the way this Mormon mom has made abstinence cool. (If your sexy boyfriend is too afraid that he might eat you or crush you to death, it's hard to hook-up, after all.) I'm excited by Meyer's metaphors. In many ways, Twilight is an allegory for the difficulty that all young people have when faced with first love, the pain of loss, the natural attraction to danger, the concept of 'living forever' embodied quite literally in Edward Cullen. Bella too, is a smart and clumsy girl, unsure of herself, unaware of her own fragile beauty, unhappy in her family life, unsatisfied in her friendships. Bella is Everygirl. The reader can't help to breathe with her, blush with her, gulp with her, sigh with her, yearn with her, cry with her. When Bella's angel is a killer, her protector is a predator, and her lover is her future damnation, Bella's life shows us that there are always two sides to every shiny coin. There are no black and whites. Or perhaps there are black and whites, but they spin together so fast that they appear a permanent gray.

Enough philosophy: don't hate this series, whatever you do. Don't discount it as teen hoopla. Don't turn away from it. It's brilliant. It's magical. It's painful and heartrending. It will make you feel seventeen and one hundred and seven.

Alive and undead.

The film sequel is coming . . . meanwhile, I'll go reread the books . . . again.

taking a break

2008-05-18T21:23:00.002-04:00

Birdhouses of Thought is taking a lengthy break right now . . .

Teacher lady had a rough end of the semester and is working on other things and taking it easy.

Be back eventually.

- Bye for now!

is there a god?

2008-04-10T15:14:00.006-04:00

Why is mankind's search for god so
d#$%ed divisive?

Add religion to death and taxes, in the count of what is certain in human life. Every culture has manifested a form of religion. Some of them may seem diametrically opposed to each other, but most religions have a fair number of eerie and telling similarities.

All of them have creation stories, for example. Most of them have flood narratives, messianic figures, and foretelling of the end times.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all derivatives of the same religion, worshipping the same god, and yet, there has been more slaughter in the name of these three faiths than is really conceivable.

Add to these "big three" the in-fighting between other religions, denominations, sects, cults, and radical philosophies, and you have a flavorful and volatile mix that is often a powder keg ready to go off at any time. (has gone off . . . continues to go off . . . )

And then there is the confounding problem of science and where it fits into the circle of faith. People can go so many ways in their views of science. My three-year-old's daycare teacher doesn't believe in evolution or the big bang theory because she takes a literal interpretation of the creation story in the bible. She also doesn't know what she feels about dinosaurs, since they weren't mentioned at all in the bible, but she really likes The Land Before Time movie, and has no qualms about showing it to either her own grandchildren or her charges.

There are creationists who denounce scientists, specifically evolutionists. There are scientists who denounce creationists. There are creationists who are scientists. There are more flavor combinations in the areas of science and creation than Baskin-Robbins can boast.

I can only speak out my own beliefs. What really confounds me is why there are all these disagreements in the first place. I have never seen a problem between believing in the big bang, evolution, and all of that, and believing in a creator. After all, the big bang theory necessitates the question of how/what/who caused the bang to occur?

My seven year old daughter has, to my happiness, developed a fascination for our reading bible stories together at night before bed. We read the Genesis account of creation last night (albeit a simplistic, child picture bible version). She had, of course, heard the story before, but her picture bible is nicely illustrated and the words are simple enough that she can really grasp her mind around it. She remembered watching science documentaries on TV with me - the ones that discuss the origins of the Earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs. She remembered that science is pretty firm on the notion that these events happened over the course of millions and billions of years, not a few days. But, interestingly, she didn't have a problem combining these two, seemingly conflicting worldviews. For this I am proud of her. She takes it all in stride and has no problem opening her mind up to the possibility that God's days are epochs to us, and that "and God said, 'let there be light' and there was light" was clearly a description of the big bang - the explosion of light from darkness, the exponential expansion of matter and energy in all directions from a central, unified, massive point.

Perhaps it is mankind's eternal struggle to question the bigness of our universe and the comparative smallness of our personal lives . . . perhaps it is the eternal quest to find reason and answers to our most troubling questions . . . perhaps it is our fear of non-existence . . . I'm not sure why it is, in the end, but regardless of whether you believe in a creator god(dess) perhaps you can find some measure of peace in knowing that the human psyche is united in its quest for that knowledge. The quest for the answer of "is there a god?" is so substantive in and of itself that it takes on a life of its own.

It is a force unto itself.

and then Barack Obama rescued me from the gunman . . .

2008-03-28T08:58:00.004-04:00

Okay this is a weird one.

I had a dream about Barack Obama.

Dreams are tricky things. Sometimes they do mean what they seem to, sometimes they are just random images strung into some sort of surreal story with no real meaning at all.

Regardless, I'm a registered Republican - so it's interesting.

A little background information on my politics: I was raised in an ultra-conservative, but highly educated family. My father was a shrewd businessman, a veteran, and a religious conservative. My mother was his right-hand "wo"man. She was an accountant, a fantastic mom, a well-read lady, and a Sunday school teacher. My brothers were all avid outdoorsmen, business majors, smart good 'ol boys. I was the princess of the family, spoiled but raised pretty strictly.

I loved politics. I loved it since I was about three years old. My home felt the fervor of political seasons and elections. We all debated policies over the breakfast, lunch and dinner table. There wasn't a single day that went by where we didn't all sit down to the 6:00 and the 6:30 news.

I enjoyed history, social studies, geography and political science in school. Now, they weren't my favorite subjects - I was an artsy-fartsy type, after all.

I remember going into the voting polls with my mommy and daddy and turning their little voting levers for them. (They picked the candidate or the issue, and I did the deed.) I remember watching the 1980 elections with delight when Ronald Reagan swept the nation with popular votes. I registered to vote when I was 17 years old, and actually voted in my state's primary at 17. You are allowed to vote in the primaries at age 17, so long as you turn 18 prior to the fall elections. (Betcha didn't know that, did you?)

But, like many young adults, I lost all of this fervor when I went to college and then made my way in the world afterwards. The gloss of it wore away for me, and I became lax. I voted from then on, still voting for my parents' choices, but with little conviction of my own.

I have become a political moderate, and lately a political not-much-at-all. I did manage to convince my highly democratic husband to vote republican for the last two presidential elections, simply because he's so darned concerned about finances. He is what I like to call a fiscal Republican, even if he's a moral Democrat.

I want a change in the U.S. leadership; I really do. But I don't really know what to do for this upcoming election. I mean, my God, I can't find a candidate that I can relate to. (As John Stewart so adroitly labeled it, it really is a cluster f$%^ to the White House.)

I'm a woman, and I would dearly LOVE to have a strong woman in the White House. However, I don't believe in Hillary Clinton. I would have respected her and probably even voted for her if she had left that two-timing sexpot of a husband, and gained the candidacy on her own merits.

I felt like all of the Republican candidates this time have been boring, middle- or senior-aged white men who seem tired. While I admire McCain for being a veteran, I just can't quite join his camp.

I have weird, weird stuff in my head going around about Obama. I liked him a lot when I first saw him on Oprah Winfrey a few years back. However, since then, I have felt more like Oprah herself should be running, rather than Obama. He seems to be only as strong as the strong women around him.

Now, about my dream. I dreamed that I was going to some sort of gathering to hear Obama talk. (Probably because he was coming the next day, and I had heard so on the news.) I didn't get to. I was going up to meet him personally, when out of the crowd a friend of mine from way back in college came up with an uzi and began opening fire. (This friend had romantic feelings for me which I had turned down, but I had no idea he felt so bad about it.) In my dream Obama pulled me out of the way and pulled me into the back of a car away from danger.

Does it mean what I think it means? Does that dream mean that Barack Obama is going to save me? Does it mean that he is meant to save the U.S.? Does it mean that the guy that I knew back in college is crazy? Does it mean that I need to lay off the Diet Coke before bed? What does it mean?

Would I be stupid to vote for Barack Obama because of this dream? I don't feel that he would necessarily be our best national leader. He might well be the lesser of three evils, but I certainly hadn't intended to vote for him. But now? I just don't know.

Anybody?

I certainly won't be telling my dad about this dream; that's for sure!

sticks, stones, bad words, and chivalry

2008-03-26T14:46:00.006-04:00

"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

Bullshit.

Okay, my sister-in-law reads my blog; no doubt she'll call my Mom and tell me that I just wrote a bad word on it.

Which only illustrates the point I want to make: words do hurt. And in this information age, they are the chief source of weaponry. How about "the pen is mightier than the sword"?

My friend wrote in his own blog a lengthy post about how he, as a sensitive feminist, has been upset about calling Ms. Dupre (Spitzer's hookup) a whore. Apparently the late night hosts have been bandying about the terms "prostitute" and "whore" without any sense of concern. My friend doesn't like those words. He equates him to words like "n-----" that reek of pure hatred.

Do they?

When I was a teenager I didn't curse. I actually agreed with my conservative parents - cursing was fundamentally bad.

Then I became an English major. It isn't just that I became more liberal. I have learned to embrace the power of words - judiciously.

I had an image in my mind that I commissioned an artist friend of mine to draw for me. It is of a chest of drawers with words coming out of it - so many words that they cannot hope to fit in the drawers. There are top drawer words, like insouciance, erudite and prodigious, middle drawer words, like fantastic and intense, bottom drawer words, like flat and whatever. But there are also those colorful dust bunnies living underneath the chest of drawers itself, where we find words like f---, s---, G--d---, and c---. My artist friend wisely didn't write these words out in his drawing. (As I haven't.) He let those words lie face down on the floor beneath the chest of drawers. (I do have it hanging up in my office, after all. Wouldn't want to overtly offend.)

Whether or not you agree that any words are innately offensive, the point is that words do have power. The power is held not necessarily in the wielder, though, but in the hearer.

It's the tree falling in the woods phenomenon. If my friend, sensitive feminist that he is, hadn't listened to David Letterman describe Ashley Dupre as a whore, he wouldn't have taken offense to it. (And then, sadly, he wouldn't have had a thing to blog about.) But it was an extreme reaction. Though I can appreciate his chivalry, I don't have to agree with it. To me, prostitution is pretty deplorable. It doesn't hurt my feelings to call her a whore. It doesn't hurt my feelings to call anybody a whore who definitionally earns money for sex. I think it's sad that the word whore has more negative connotations than the word pimp. It's a horrible double-standard that pimps are glamorized, while whores are downtrodden. But, I would argue that Dupre isn't downtrodden in the least. She's a capitalist opportunist (bless her heart). She'll have more than 15 minutes of fame over this. She'll be a rich whore, in the end. Anyone can take whatever offense they like, but in the end, I don't have to support her. (Although I clearly just did, having given her more press by blogging about her. So I'll stop.)

And about male feminists who tiptoe around terminology: keep doing it. It's safer that way, but know that that is what you are doing. Being indignant about such terminology is no less chivalrous than opening a door for us.

There's nothing wrong with opening doors, but then, I'm only a moderate feminist. Some of the more strenuous female feminists would clobber you if you tried. Words can hurt me, and if you called me a whore, then I'd take offense.

I only teach for money.

my sleeping beauty nemesis

2008-03-15T19:47:00.012-04:00

My Arch-nemesis: Sleeping Beauty:

I had an arch-nemesis. I'm not sure whether she even knew she was my arch-nemesis, but she was all the same. You know what I'm talking about. It all started early, early in elementary school. There was this one girl: blond, blue-eyed, beautiful, smart, popular, teachers' favorite, talented, sporty, nice, etc. etc. etc. I loathed her. Now, don't get me wrong. I was pretty smart and talented myself. I was consistantly on the honor roll in school. I was artistic and dramatic. But the thing is that I was horribly unpopular - a nerd who didn't fit into her own skin back then.

That girl had everything I wanted. It wasn't just that she was pretty and popular, she was also a good student. That really sucked. I mean, why can't the popular girls stay in their own realm and make bad grades - why did this one have to come into my realm of academic success. Worse, she sometimes did BETTER than I did in school. Aaaggghhh!!!

I remember one of the lowest blows. It was sixth grade. Our school was putting on Sleeping Beauty. Now, in my imagination, I was a princess. You should have seen me play dress up and prance about my family's farm and conjure all manner of adventures and fairy tale romances to keep me company over the long summers. But for this school play - guess who got the part of the lovely Sleeping Beauty, fairy-tale princess? (Hint, she looked like she stepped right out of the Disney film itself, and she rhymes with "lemesis.") Guess who was cast as a, wait for it . . . a thorn. Yes, that's right, a THORN!!! So nemesis was the lovely Sleeping Beauty, and I had to wear a green leotard and a head-piece reminiscient of the statue of liberty. Of course, I resolved to be the best thorn I could be, and everybody in the front few rows who heard my thorn songs really thought so, I'm sure.

But still . . .

Anyway, we grew up. We were in every single class together all the way through high school. Nemesis was homecoming queen. Nemesis dated the most popular boy. Nemesis kept her high GPA. Nemesis was clearly a stepford teen.

Of High School and Cliques:

A few things happened to me when I was a junior in high school. First off, I grew out my bangs. (This was big for the late 1980s.) Secondly, I got contact lenses. Thirdly, I asked nemesis' ex-boyfriend, (the most popular boy in school) out on a date to the Valentine's day dance.

He said yes.

Now, believe it or not, high school cliques are more complex than we realized. I would like to take a moment to discuss four cliques that I've observed: the popular clique, the nerd clique, the smart clique and a smart-popular clique. Sometime at the end of high school, it is possible for the smart clique and the smart-popular clique to merge. This happened in my school. A number of us who were on the fringes of nerdiness adapted ourselves socially and became the "smart clique." A number of popular kids who just couldn't party any more became the "smart-popular clique." The smarts and the smart-populars banded together early on in our senior year. We were all going to college, after all. We went to parties together and drank non-alcoholic beverages, ate pizza and watched Monty Python.

I was in the smart clique. Nemesis was in the smart-popular clique. Most popular boy in school hung with both. Wow, was he ever a bridge.

Bridging our Differences:

Now this part is going to seem tangential, but it's integral to my story. Ever since I was twelve years old, I knew where my talents and passions were pointing me. I loved English, reading, and writing. I wanted to be an educator. I even proofread my older brother's master's thesis when I was in seventh grade. I made an A in every single English class I ever took. I think I may have even had it over nemesis in English, and you can't imagine what kind of pride I took in that.

Anyone who is a born teacher will tell you that, given a willing student, we will bend over backwards to teach. It is our nature to help other people understand. (We don't go into the occupation for the money but for the intrinsic rewards.)

Anyway, all through senior year, I had to endure social gatherings with my nemesis present. She and I actually talked from time to time. I tried not to think unhappy thoughts about her, but boy was it hard.

I remember one day in AP English class: I was sitting at the front of the class. Nemesis was right behind me - how symbolic - and we were discussing a piece of particularly difficult literature. The teacher left the classroom for some reason, and we were left to write about our discussion. I felt a tapping on my back. I turned around. Nemesis was looking flustered. I asked her what she wanted. She said to me, "Please help me. I just don't understand this."

I'm ashamed to say I cannot remember the literature we were working on. I suppose it's because it doesn't really matter. What mattered was that, at that moment, everything changed for me. I saw my nemesis as a girl, like me, who struggled with things. It didn't even occur to me to gloat that I knew something that she didn't. I just wanted to help her to understand. I answered her questions. I helped her with her writing assignment. After that she and I hung out more, at parties, between classes, sometimes at lunch. I wouldn't say that we became friends, exactly, but I definitely stopped viewing her as my arch-nemesis. We even talked bad about popular boy - who moved on from both of us. (Too bad for him, I think. Last I saw of him, he had flunked out of engineering school. My ex-nemesis went to medical school - you go, girl! I married a medical student, now brilliant and handsome doctor, and went on to become a successful college English instructor.

So, I guess that goes to show you how much high school cliques really matter in the end.)

Flash forward:

But that really isn't the end of the story. Not really. You see, my husband and I have two lovely, beautiful, and brilliant daughters. The eldest is seven years old and doing pretty well in first grade. In her class is a young, stepford child whom she has known since kindergarten. Now this girl is pretty, smart, friendly, popular and trendy. My daughter is frequently kept from being the best in her class because this girl nearly always bests her. Secretly, I'm glad that my daughter has her own nemesis, because it might just keep her somewhat humble. I can't tell you how often stepford-girl has gotten perfect attendance, student of the week, student of the month, etc. etc.

I just found out yesterday that the first graders are putting on a play. It's a musical with only four speaking parts, a revisioning of fairy-tales. One of the parts is, if you can remember this from the beginning of this lengthy blog, karmically: Sleeping Beauty.

But, my daughter's humility is going to have to wait, I suppose . . .

because it was she, and not her nemesis, who got the part of the fairy-tale princess.

book-a-likes & latest installments

2008-03-09T11:16:00.005-04:00

Bibliophiles appreciate newest installments. I go to the bookstore and hope that my favorite authors have a new one out, and when they don't I mourn. I scope out their websites to get a hint as to when to expect those newest arrivals. Sometimes my appetite is whetted by a chapter at the end of the last one I read; sometimes those authors are generous enough to post the first chapter of their next books on their websites.

I get frustrated by authors who try to ride the coattails of other authors. I get tired of book-a-likes. There are countless revisionings of The Da Vinci Code, for example. They all have similar jackets and cover art. They all hint at conspiracies and religious heresy.

There are two authors that I'm maddeningly addicted to right now, Jim Butcher (Dresden Files) and Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse novels). And now there are authors who are trying to copycat them. The new Dresden comes out April 1, and the newest Sookie adventure hits the shelves May 1. I won't try to appease my hard-boiled wizard or telepathic vampire-lusting barmaid hungers by reading a cookie cutter version of either.

I was wandering through Barnes & Nobles the other day. I even bought a few things to tide me over until 4/1 and 5/1. But while I was wandering and looking at the smorgasbord of titles, I realized how unhappy I was with the fictional formulas. It made me want to pick up the many threads of novels I had begun but never finished.

Given time and determination, I know I could get at least one of my stories published, and perhaps inspire a host of copycat authors to ride on my coattails. Maybe I could even get on a writing and publishing streak and manage to have bibliophiles like myself hungry for my next installment.

I'd better get busy.

march mistletoe

2008-03-02T21:22:00.004-05:00

It is a sure mark of a crazy, busy, disorganized life, when one glances up in one's living room and realizes that mistletoe is still hanging from the ceiling light, and it is March the second.

Of course, my daughters and I have decided to go ahead and leave up the mini-Christmas tree on their bedroom dresser which is serving as a nightlight.

I look around at the volume of clutter and mess in my house and lack the energy and determination to do a d____ thing about it all. The cleaning service will make my piles neater, take out what they think is trash, dust, mop, vacuum, etc, tomorrow, and the house will be a bit nicer to live in for a couple of days, until my girls drag the detritus back out again, and my husband and I don't bother to participate in the after-the-girls-are-abed cleanup.

Sometimes my oldest daughter picks up. Sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes I make her and her sister do it. Sometimes I don't.

Ah, the plight of the American DITKs (double-income, two kids). Sadly, "DITK" just isn't a properly syllabalized word.

The hours and responsibilities at our full-time jobs just seem to escalate. The price of living similarly escalates. The perverse addiction of consumerism leaves us vulnerable and overcome. The angst that rages inside us between feeling guilty that we don't spend enough time with our children, but the surety that if we spend too much time with them we will go insane . . .

Ah, this is a gripey blog.

If I had the time to spend truly cleaning out the clutter of my home and my life, as well as the energy to take up that task, and the determination to see it through, then I would be a superwoman indeed. I would qualify for sparkly undershirts to wear beneath my business casual-wear, the kind that have enormous "S"s emblazoned on them. I could rip off said work attire, grab a kid under each arm, fly up into the sky (leaving the minivan behind) and rocket us to Disneyworld just for the afternoon.

Of course, if I did that, I still wouldn't be getting my house cleaned up, and the mistletoe would still be hanging up in my living room on March third.

the misadventures of squirrel girl

2008-02-21T06:36:00.004-05:00

My younger daughter is a squirrel. She has gotten into the avocation of wandering around the house and grabbing little things, putting them into bags or purses or pouches or sacks or boxes, and then putting those little treasure packages in strategic locations. It's an odd habit for a three year old; I suppose it would be odder if she were thirty.

Now there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the objects that she squirrels, at least none that my husband and I can determine: dolls, combs, barrettes, bottle tops, forks, paper, stickers, tampons, rocks, dried up pieces of food . . . This was amusing for a while but has now become somewhat problematic.

The three items of some import that we (her family) just couldn't seem to find, and that she claims to have no knowledge of squirreling are as follows: a shaker of pepper, a bottle of honey (shaped like a teddy bear), and my small jewelry box holding my diamond necklace.

Now here's where the plot thickens. I hired a new cleaning service this week. They were machines. They really cleaned our house, even removed the dusty bunnies from atop our fridge. A day or so after they did this thorough cleaning, the honey and the jewelry box came up missing.

One could easily and rationally assume that these maids made off with my diamond necklace, were it not for the nagging little fact that we have a habitual thief and hoarder living in our midst, as well as the fact that it taxes me to intuit what in the world they would want with a bottle of honey.

So I haven't called the maid service to ask them if they have seen my jewelry box with the diamond necklace inside it or to blatantly accuse them of it, because I feel certain that said object of value is in our house somewhere - hidden away in a place that my daughter herself has either forgotten or intends to sequester for the duration.

I have hope that I will eventually find it, however, because as I was madly searching for the jewelry box yesterday, I came upon a new hoard: stuffed to bursting inside a plastic Dora the Explorer backpack, jammed under my bed, was a host of lost paraphernalia which included . . .

a shaker of pepper.

reviving the 80s

2008-02-17T23:17:00.003-05:00

Everything old is new again.

I was commenting to my Expository Writing class on the interesting turn that entertainment frequently takes - namely when the television and film industry creates remakes of old favorites.

So, I couldn't help myself; I had to watch the new Knight Rider on NBC.

It's the familiar set of archetypes: good versus evil, man versus technology, boy meets girl, boy supplants father, boy gets an amazing set of wheels . . .

It's fun to see the 1980s come back to life. Our music is being recut. Our shows are being revisioned. Our fashions and hairdos are starting to resurge (though God forbid, I will NEVER feather my hair - never, never, never). All of this is because those of us in our thirties are financially solid at this point; we are spending, and the industry markets to us - all the while betting on our nostalgia.

I would be interested to see how less-than-25-year-olds respond to this phenomenon, when in ten or fifteen years, their music, TV, and movies get recreated and repackaged.

As Quietdrive, I mean Cyndi Lauper, said: "if you're lost, you can look, and you will find me - time after time . . ."

my daughter is addicted to Webkinz

2008-02-10T09:35:00.001-05:00

I have to hand it to the Ganz company in their creation of Webkinz World. Many of you in the technical community know what that is, although if you don't have small children in your life, you might not be familiar with the phenomenon.

Webkinz World is essentially a social networking website for kids. You buy a stuffed Webkinz toy, and it comes with a pass code. Then you go online to Webkinz World and sign the code in to create your account and adopt your pet.

Once my daughter discovered Webkinz World, a number of amazing things happened. She became computer literate overnight. She got much steadier with a mouse, clicking, dragging and dropping, using menus and toolbars and typing in text. (She started when she was six. She's seven now, and she's a pro.) She learned about emailing and chatting. If you know your friend's usernames, you can send them messages on Webkinz and play with each other virtually.

Webkinz also has about five hundred million games, many of which are vaguely educational in nature. It is also an infantized version of virtual reality gaming using avatars. My daughter picks out furnishings, clothes and food for her pets and earns kinzcash to pay for them.

I do have to make sure she doesn't spend too much time on there and that she doesn't let her face-to-face interpersonal skills atrophy. I guess that's my biggest fear - that her generation of learners doesn't know how to translate virtual social skills into real interactions. (Not to mention the fact that she will need to stay physically active for her health and well-being.)

So let your child play with Webkinz with the caveat that it is very clearly a gateway to total online submersion, and be sure to make her log out from time to time to feed and care for her real pet . . .

there is providence in the fall of a sparrow

2008-02-08T20:44:00.000-05:00

I have a student with a 7 year old son who tried to kill himself last week.

I don't really know what to do with that information. I hear about the life situations of many of my students, and frequently I am disturbed by them. Often, I feel motivated to prayer. This student of mine has more baggage than I could ever tote. She is struggling with more stressors than I can comprehend - a past that includes rape and financial difficulty. She is trying to better herself through college. She is extremely bright and well-spoken. But now she has reached a precipice of anxiety and pain.

I don't have a rope to throw her other than to tell her that I'm thinking of her and am available to talk.

I have told all of my friends and relatives that I am at a point in my life where I am the most stressed I have ever been. I have overextended myself. I have taken on a number of responsibilities, that, in conjunction with my job and my family, have officially rendered me panicked.

But I have an enormous cushion of fortune to land upon during this time of panic. I have a loving and ideal childhood. I have two living, senior still-married, parents. I have three beautiful brothers. I have a strong husband. I have two healthy daughters. I have friends and colleagues who value me. I have my education, my career, my minivan, my house, my clothes, my food, my coffee, my Sting music, my books, my TiVo.........

I am lucky. My student is not.

How can a 7 year old crash and burn from a depression so strong that he takes a knife to his own throat? How can a mother survive such an experience?

How can I help her? Right now, all I can do is blog about it. I pray to God that she finds a cushion of her own to land upon.

"providence in the fall of a sparrow" - A line from the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, suggesting that a divine power takes a benevolent interest in human affairs.