It's an allegory, really!

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 (and New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn and the unpublished Midnight Sun.)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

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?

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 . . .

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.