Unicorn Facts

General: Unicorns usually weigh around 1,000 pounds (450 kilos), and don't mind who knows it. They can have extraordinarily long lives. Some experts claim that under normal circumstances, unicorns are immortal. No evidence exists to the contrary. All unicorns are born on February 29th.

Typical habitat: Forests, usually near streams (for which they may or may not be responsible for creating by their presence); also, but rarely, deserts.

Horn: All unicorns have horns, though not all are magical. The magical horn of a unicorn is the result of a combination of fairy dust, prayer, and an irregularity on the 29th chromosome.

Powers: Those unicorns with magical horns have powers of healing and of granting certain wishes. The sense of humor of a unicorn is known to diffuse any awkward situation, including, but not limited to, meetings with in-laws, court-ordered community service, and the first day of school.

Social Behavior and Interests:


-despise bawdy jokes, but have been known to drop curse words on occasion.

-do not tend to be outgoing. But they will be your friend, if cornered.

-rarely gather in groups. When they do gather in groups, they find themselves watching their favorite movies.


-will help you move your refrigerator.

-take a lively interest in the soap-opera lives of squirrels.


-Read Across America Day (paired with Dr. Suess' birthday celebration on March 2nd) was the idea of a few enterprising unicorns.


-enjoy daisies and bananas.

-are incapable of holding a grudge.


-Two sure ways to annoy a unicorn are to exaggerate their healing powers, or to assume they have no views on politics, specifically healthcare bills.

-maintain excellent hygiene.

-often read novels, especially when traveling.

Sources:

Bill the Unicorn. Personal Interview. 13 April 2011.

Senator Frederick "Fred the Unicorn" Loannes. Personal Interview. 13 April 2011.

Silton, Sybil. Silton's Approximate Geographical Guide to Unicorns. Trans. Carolyn McKalips. Ulaanbaatar: 1200. Vellum print.


image: http://lair2000.net/Unicorn_Dreams/Unicorn_History/modern_unicorns.html

Crash or Soar

I have not heard good things about our ninth grade class as a whole. The other English teachers I've spoken with have had their hands full trying to make a go of their English 9 classes. Mrs. B said at the beginning of each new semester, you hope for your class to run and take off from the ground. That being off the ground is the learning experience, and it's thrilling. But her last class walked a bit, and—plunk—into the water they dropped and sank. They did not want to learn.

I approached my first ever English 9 class with a good deal of reservation as a result of this and other tragic stories. If we couldn't fly, at least we could stay away from the deep end for the plunk.

Today, my English 9 removed my fear of the plunk. Jay read his personal narrative aloud for our revision circle. It was about his being adopted. It was rife with spelling and grammatical errors. But the heart of it was not the less visible for them: he was glad to be in a safe, caring family that brought him closer to God. He read in a stilted way, not yet a confident reader aloud. But he persevered manfully through the piece. We applauded him, and slowly hands went in the air for commentary. Everyone appreciated his sharing his piece. One girl, Elena, thanked him for writing his story. She, too, had been adopted, but more recently. And she still remembered what it felt like not to be wanted by her father and mother. She told us of the relief and gratitude she felt toward her adoptive parents, the people she trusted so wholly. She ended with a sob. It may have taken all she had to talk about that. But she knew she had to, because Jay had the courage to write about this thing that had so moved her as well.

When she had finished, I, like an idiot, said something to try to draw the attention away from her... I think I was uncomfortable for her. I didn't want her to feel as though she had spoken to an empty room. But I think now that I would have rather just said, "thanks so much for sharing that," and left it.

So, there is a story of how my class lifted off of their own volition, and didn't wobble and crash. They soared.

Recent Reading

I recently read A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, that man is something wonderful and nuts. I love what he has to say about humor. He concludes by saying that perhaps he is too old, and not funny anymore.

This book is memoirish: the rantings of a man who more than admits that he's old: he takes certain liberties which he knows he can get away with, since he's 82. Note, he has always taken certain liberties, but he blames it on age now, his own joke. One may picture him a pensive window-looker, eccentric old man who smokes his cigar, knowing the evil of the world. But he'll offer you a cigar, too. You can watch the bomb go off together. All the good and the bad mixed together. What a man.

Conversation

Readers, this is remarkable only because I believe she was somewhat serious.

Alyssa: Do we have days when the weather makes it... so no school?

Me: You want a snow day?

Alyssa: Yes! When do we have?

Me: It has to snow first.

Alyssa: Oh... Can't we have a day off?

Me: Are you asking me to make it snow? Seriously?

First Day of the Semester

I dismissed a class almost ten minutes early today. I was looking at the wrong schedule. They came back puzzled and chatty.

First days of anything ... I'm not a fan. I have to constantly talk myself down and say things like, "you've done a lot of first things, and you've gotten used to them! Remember the obstacle course at boot camp at age eleven? Remember opening McDonald's at 4am in July? You'll get used to this."

The moment I realize what I'm doing here, teaching and advising, I am liable to hit some strange Freak Out button (this button is visible only after 7pm). In essence, it's not so hard: plan some reading and writing, give a vocabulary test occasionally, hang out with teenagers from different countries. Really, it's wonderful in a basic way. But as soon as I begin to think about the philosophy and the agenda and the goals and the essential questions that have to back up every single thing I say... Well, I say, higher education has only complicated things.

Just a Friend

I believed in you from a distance,
when you were at your worst.
I wish I had a part in you now.

The worst of it is your legacy of pain.
If I hold on now, I'm bound to hurt forever,
with the searing pain of red-hot shackles:

Asking what drove you to it,
why you drove yourself,
and alone!


You jumped!

Now I have to let go.

I, who made the mistake of believing
that you knew exactly what you were doing.

What I Would Like to Believe

I would like to believe that you are in California
with an old laptop some friend let you borrow,
then saw you had a necessity for it,
the words pouring forth from your mind at 2am,
like you do. There you sit, a loud TV on in another room,
but you've learned not to complain since the rent is cheap.

And moment by moment, you narrate the madness of passing world
passing life
beautifully
and with your rueful half-smile.

I promised myself I'd be the first to read it!
Before the piece even touched the shelf,
somehow I'd know.
And all the blurred years of ink and heartbreak,
and your illegible pencil-scratch notes,
would begin their healing in me, as
I read about your cross-country journeys,
your smoking up with strangers,
and how you realized it would get you nowhere.

Surviving on meager cooking of your own,
occasionally working up a kitchen masterpiece to share with...

with whom? There I stop.

No one traveled that road with you.
No one knew.
No one knew.