Teaching New Books

When you're starting new units, especially new books, you sometimes have to give history lessons to provide context for the story.

Both seventh and ninth grade are starting new books next week. So this week was even more academically strenuous than your typical five days, because I had to use my non-strength of teaching history in order to get us off the ground. Not only that, but the books we're reading require extra-special attention to not being a jackass: the Israel-Palestine conflict for seventh grade's book, Habibi; and slavery and racism in the United States for ninth grade's book, To Kill a Mockingbird.

I got home by 5:15 pm, and slept until 7:15 pm.

And now I'm off to bed at 9:35 pm, because tomorrow is another day with lists and classes.

Tomorrow is also Moroccan dress day, and I'll be sporting a piece given to me today by an extraordinarily kind student.

Update:

I'm on the left, roommate Stacey on the right.

Creative Energies Transformed

"Why haven't I been writing?" I ask myself, and one or two of you have asked me, too. One part of not writing has been the fear of it. If you refuse to stop and reflect, you don't have to make any changes to your life. You can just keep going forward until you hit a roadblock.

So I let myself fill up my schedule with visiting. (I've been around. You've seen me.) And while that's mostly been a positive change since this time last year, the lack of quiet for my mind has crippled my ability to compose creatively.

When I do become introspective, cataracts of thought open wide, and out flows something different than before: a desire to sing, to play an instrument, to run, to laugh with you, to do something brave, to call you, to finally get back to watching Lost, to coach a Bible Quiz team, to plan a friend's wedding, to visit my sick grandpa and my outspoken grandma, to see a good friend far away, to plan a baby shower, to read that book... by the way, it was Wuthering Heights this month, and it drew me in like the sea, and rescued me, too.

It occurs to me that time is short; if I want to do any of those things, I had better do at least one right now.

I do still write, though, in my journal a few times a month. I write emails. I write advertising copy. I write quiz questions. All taken together, it is satisfying me for now.

Thoughts on Berry's Hannah Coulter

In the booth at the cafe I sat, crying my eyes out as I read Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter. Hannah told me about her gratitude in having a community surrounding her for her whole life. She told me of the trials and joys, and gave thanks to God for all of it. As I bawled, I thought of all the dying farms, the broken communities, the people dying alone and forsaken, the strip malls, the brokenness of our society that plans for things to break down so it can sell us something new. And it is right to cry for it.

Though the book is Hannah's recollections covered in gratitude, it is a lament. In chapter 22, she considers the changes wrought in her farming community, once so tightly-knit, but now,

The old neighborliness has about gone from it [...]. The old harvest crews and their talk and laughter at kitchen tables loaded with food have been replaced by machines, and by migrant laborers who eat at the store. The old thrift that once kept us alive has been replaced by extravagance and waste. People are living as if they think they are in a movie. They are all looking in one direction, toward "a better place," and what they see is no thicker than a screen.

Hannah laments for all of us, for she finds the old, communal ways to be the more fulfilling, though they cost more sweat. She is one who has made this transition from the sweat, grit, and teamwork of farm life to

... [A] new century, also a new millennium, and it is the same world still. Here in Port William, it seems, we are waiting. For what? For the last of the old rememberers and the old memories to disappear forever? For the coming of knowledge that will make us a community again? For the catastrophe that will force us to become a community again? For the catastrophe that will end everything? For the Second Coming?

Berry has said it well. He is shouting it through Hannah's quiet reflections out her kitchen window, dishtowel in hand. We wait for some catastrophe to knock the phones out of our hands. We wait for the electricity to go out so that I can stop writing this post, and go out into the 72°-non-humid weather and LIVE. We wait for rescue from our insularity, because we can't extricate ourselves. We love shows like Revolution, and books like The Hunger Games because they show what we hope we really are inside: clever survivors, courageous fighters, people who matter. We hope we can make our own way when it comes down to it: kill our own meat, raise our own crops, carry our own water. But it rarely seems to "come down to it" when we have grocery stores and water taps. And we fear the loss of it all quite deeply. Did I say "we"? I meant me.

Not only was Hannah Coulter thought-provoking, it was at times simply provoking, for I can't quite feel satisfied with his farm utopia. He speaks of membership as if it were something everyone had but doesn't have anymore. He speaks of landowning as its own heaven, farming and housework as if they were their own salvation. He speaks of death as if people used to be quite comfortable dying, but are not anymore.

He speaks of education as though it were un-redemptive--and he's not just talking about the educational system in the U.S., but any education that requires a person to go away from home. Well, a job might as easily do that if there were a drought in the farmland. Education can bring you away from home, yes, but education only empowers a person to do what's in his or her heart. There's the test.

And so Hannah was entirely satisfied with the simple life? Maybe she was. Or maybe she's just a hope that Berry cherishes: that silence and hard work alone will feed our souls all they need. So much so. But Christ is all. And I am certain that he calls us to silence and hard work more often than I hear; but it is his call. 

Thanks, Mom

Prompt: Indulge in nostalgia

I don't normally think about the positive things I associate with being a kid. My childhood is filled with half-gratified desires. I often think about how hard I had it. I always had questions that needed answering, and I longed to grow up so I could be taken seriously.

The library. As a child, my room had lots of picture books, and we were always at the library swapping them out. We rented movies from there, too, especially during the summer. I remember the first time I saw Princess Bride. My brother was skeptical that it was going to be "a girl movie" (ha!!). It should go without saying that we were both entirely satisfied by the viewing experience.

Midnight Snack. How it got started, I don't know. And it was never actually midnight when my mother indulged our young cravings for sweets. She put a few Graham crackers out with cups of milk. I became a pro Graham-dunker. Good job, Mom, on not giving us fruit snacks or candy at that hour. She knew nutrition, even if our babysitters were sometimes less than aware.

Reading to us.Why does no one read to me now? It's so comfortable and cozy to sit and listen to someone else's voice, on and on. As I rested my head on her side, I closed my eyes and heard her voice, swallowing my thoughts and spooning a thin layer of honey all over the world. She read to us before bed almost every night, when she wasn't working, of course, and she'd dismiss us to bed with, "first one to bed gets first hugs'n'kisses!" We scrambled for our rooms, and made such a fuss if she didn't judge correctly the "winner" of the game.

"Go outside and play." In my imperfect memory, Stephen always seemed to be outside with his friends, riding bike, or skateboarding, or playing street hockey, or... many other mysteries. None of my friends lived in town for a long time, so I confined myself to the yard, learned nothing there, and felt lonely. But at least I was outside, and so was Stephen, usually. Once, though, I recall he and Logan and Danny (together, the Three Musketeers, but without the noble intentions or code of honor) were playing in the basement. They were there for a long time, and finally came upstairs giggling. They had spray-painted their initials on a yellow, metal cabinet, long unused, in the tiny work room. The fumes had been getting to them, but they also thought that they were the cleverest little rascals to ever strategically spray paint their initials. The "LSD" cabinet remained in the house for a long time.

"Why don't you stay home tonight?" In high school, my mom would tell me that I couldn't go out, just because "you've already gone out three nights this week. It would be a good night to stay in." I so little understood how much my bitter, "But why?!" could have hurt her. My "why?" to the request to stay home implied so much: that I wanted to get away from her and the family, that I didn't think they were worth my time, that I had better things to do, better places to be, in short, that I didn't value my home community and consider it worth my contribution.

I wish more parents would tell their kids to stay in a few nights a week. When I tell it to dorm students, they are frustrated. They say things like, "It feels like I'm in prison!"; "I hate this place!"; "Why do you want to control me!?" But by the end of the year, they realize that the time they spent here was valuable. They wish they had spent more time getting to know the other students and advisers. They realize that this was their home for a while, and wish they had owned it more, contributed more.

Third Year Goals

School has started, and God is just as good as ever! I feel unsettled and unruly in my heart, though, and I can't imagine what would quiet me. I doubt I'd do it if I knew. I am ready to call it fatigue and leave the question to be sucked up by the fan in the window.

I'm undertaking a few challenges this year, friends. The first is a prayer challenge: to pray in the girls' lounge for a half an hour two nights a week, from about 10:15 - 10:45. The second is to read one book from my writing class's reading list every two weeks. I often say, rightly, that I don't have time to read; but I want to make time, because I enjoy reading and because I have the happy excuse of calling it career development.

This being my third at the residence hall, I have two points, and am able to finally draw a navigation line between them. Year one, I thought my job was tough, filled with apathetic or annoying teenagers who were inherently my excuse for not building community. Year two, I thought it was my sole job to build a community, to pray it into being, and then, when I failed, to accept that I should have done more and better.

Year three, it seems obvious now that building a community is not something a person can do alone. There's no amount of willpower or hard work that can form it. No way. It takes a friggin' village, and the grace of God. The residence hall is a village. Sorta. By the end of last year, it was time for me to admit that the students of the RH were a big part of my community, and therefore my calling and my ministry.

Also of note, a writing student informed me today that she is considering getting a tattoo of a semi-colon, because though the sentence seems to have stopped, like life, it goes on. Awesome.

Dinosaurs

Me: Dad, I wish I had gone through a dinosaur stage as a child. I was missing out. I really like dinosaurs.

Dad: Well, that's all very nice, but where were you when they were sickly?



I remember one of the most interesting conversations of my life was when Kelly taught me what it is to imagine away boredom. We were maybe 12 years old, and I am sure it was largely motivated by the movie Jurassic Park. As we were in the car headed past fields separated by tree lines, with a forest bordering the horizon, she quietly mentioned, "sometimes, when I'm bored, I picture a pack of velociraptors coming out of the trees."

Ever since, I have often imagined dinosaurs entering into my life. I  especially love the way Dinotopia makes it possible for humans to interact with dinosaurs (specifically the herbivores).

RE: Reading FOR FUN

Recently, James Patterson posted this status on Facebook: "Any of you know any English teachers? Would you do me a favor? Please ask them, in their experience, what their best strategy has been for getting kids to like reading FOR FUN? Or, if they hadn’t had much luck, what they think the reasons are? Thanks."

My friend kindly forwarded this status to me, and of course I wondered, is Patterson asking me how he might sell more books? Marketing advice from an English teacher? But he got me thinking about it, then writing about it, and here we are.

First, I have to ask myself why I want kids to read more FOR FUN. I mean, why would I spend so much energy teaching someone how to have fun? "For fun" alone seems a poor reason for doing things. And I can think of a million more ways to have fun that don't involve as much work as reading; spray painting bad words on a neighbor's shed, for instance, would serve the purpose beautifully.

But I want my students to read because it will help them to think about new things. Reading will help them to live their lives better. Reading will help them to concentrate long enough to think through a problem. And lastly, I want them to read because I'm a cop-out. Reading will teach them all I cannot hope to.

Now I am ready for the "how?". But I am not an expert here. I've loved to read ever since I got the hang of it.

Right now, at the beginning of my teaching career, I can think of three things that I do to encourage readers:

1. My love for reading grew from being read to, so I read to them.

2. I never seem to have enough time to sit and read, so I make time to read in class. They can read anything they want, they just have to be reading and silent.

3. I usually only do things when I see someone else doing it, so I read near them. During our silent, sustained reading, I am reading, too. I let myself get into the book, right then, right there, instead of answering emails and grading things. Then afterward, I will sometimes share what I was reading, something that puzzled me, something I liked.

Morning Routine

My morning actually starts the night before, when I'm setting my alarm clock. If I set it for 6:15am, I'm having a really great night, and I'm making plans to wake up and go to the gym. If I set it for 7:15am, I've had a long day, and I'm being realistic about the next morning. I have probably already made my lesson plans, and I clinically conclude that I need sleep more than exercise.

Then, the alarm goes off. And it doesn't matter how I felt last night: I reset the alarm for 7:30 and turn over. I mildly warn myself that I am choosing to settle for a lukewarm shower. (Here in the dorm, hot water is at a premium between the hours of 7-8am, and 9-11pm.)

7:30  Roll out of bed, and occasionally fall onto the floor. Where is the dexterity I practiced so expertly just moments earlier when I was resetting my alarm? Vanished.

7:31 - 7:45   I wander about the apartment a bit:

I press the power button on my ancient laptop.

I  start a pot of coffee. Drink a glass of water. Stretch. I mumble a bit to myself. I doubt I did this when I lived with other people. It's amazing how quickly one can wake up with just a little outside motivation; even the desire to appear friendly is enough for me.When one lives alone, there's no such need. (Perhaps lonely people are often grumpy all the day long because they just never wake up!)

By then, my computer is on, and I log in.

7:46 - 8:10  Shower. This may seem like a long time. And it is. It's ridiculous.

8:11 - 8:15   My computer has loaded all its applications, and I can now check the weather and my emails while sipping coffee, robed.

8:16   I realize that I still need to make copies of notes and create a vocabulary quiz for my English 9 class. I decide to hurry.

8:17 - 8:30   I make and eat breakfast (that is, I pour granola and rice milk into a bowl) while reading the poem of the day from MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul. Look at the clock, look away, forget, look up again. I have to hurry. Sip. Sip. Sip.

8:32 - 8:40   The mania sets in: clothes, hair, makeup, keys, books, planner, out the door.

8:41   Wait. SHOES! Back in the apartment.

8:42   In my classroom.


What do we learn from this? I could eliminate serious time in the mornings if I only had a new computer.

It's Wednesday. It's February. We're going to be fine.

I just finished reading The Hunger Games. I'm devastated and worthless after finishing a book. Time to go outside for a walk in the dark. Sure, it's melancholy, but not as much as looking at pictures from my high school graduation which I happened upon today. What a windy day. And whatever, Kelly wasn't the only one in National Honor Society. The rest of us returned our hoods immediately after the ceremony to avoid incurring a fine. And it's anyone's guess as to why Sly just can't behave in any of these photos.

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.

Consequences

What do you expect to happen because you didn't read the assignment?

Do you think that because you didn't read we will:

forgo the discussion and instead look out the window?

have a naptime?

create fingerprint art?

have impromptu comic book character comparison time? (Well, I'll consider it.)

I'll tell you what is going to happen. We will have something I will call discussion, but really:

I'll ask a question,

you'll avoid my gaze,

I'll call on you anyway,

you'll look sheepish, stunned, frightened, ashamed, angry, disappointed (or all of these in succession)

with either me or yourself,

then I will wait for you to mumble something,

and the discussion will drag on

until we all want to gouge our eyes out,

for a change of scenery.

I will then institute daily quizzes.

(Which will daily involve inventing, typing, copying, cutting, passing out, collecting, scoring, entering scores, re-passing out, discussing why you can't have half a point)

And when I ask Jim's daughter's name from chapter 23 in Huckleberry Finn, I will still get all the following:

Tory

Sally
Mary
Jima
Jameka
Grace
Ophelia
Emily

...except 'Lizabeth.

Student Teaching, Week Seven

When I look back over the week, I don't see any increase in my responsibilities. I taught less, planned less, did less in the classroom, actually. But why am I feeling so tired right now?

Next week, I'll be teaching Huckleberry Finn in the two college prep classes, and also implementing my own unit plan for nonfiction in my tech prep class.

Some things that I find intimidating about this:

• My computer isn't adapting well to the smartboard. (But we have a smartboard! So awesome.)
• I haven't yet finished lesson plans for the first two days of the nonfiction unit
• I constantly feel as though I am gypping the students out of what's best for them when I'm teaching.
• I wonder how they will react to my personal ideas
• I wonder how my cooperating teacher will react to my personal ideas
• Do I have enough of my own ideas in the unit?
• I wonder if I will be able to forgive myself for all the mistakes I make during the day when I get into the car and drive away
• What if we have extra time in class?
• What if I miss important information for their lives? (Or worse, the PSSA test...hah.)
• Staying organized enough to pull off a couple weeks teaching a full load
• Job applications--yeah, 'bout those.

There we have it folks, the things that go through my mind before I sleep, as I'm driving, while I'm planning, while I'm not planning, while I walk to work, while I get another round for table 55, while I clean out the pickle fridge... And this is the abridged list, I'm afraid.

But the good news is (there should be one line of good news, at least), this afternoon, when I came home, flowers were on our porch. They were for someone else, but we got to keep them, since they had the wrong address!

The actual bad news is that this is the week that Japan was all but destroyed by a tsunami. God, forgive my skewed perspective. Today, I feel for my brothers and sisters in Japan.

A Schoolday in Winter

It is hard to think of the sunrise

over the snow, pink and red, and then

everywhere! Unleashed!

The heat in the car finally kicking in

and warming my toes--

all as the sun rose!

It is hard to even think of reasons to live

when you're sitting in a 10th grade

health class, and they're copying from

their books,

and you're "observing,"

and you've forgotten your "essential paperwork,"

read "Mark Twain."

Events and Observations

from the last 30 days.

For Christmas, I traveled to Stephen and Megan's house. I saw Aida and Holden and my Dad, and got everyone sick with a distinctly violent cold. We watched Master and Commander practically in slow motion. Stephen commented on everything navy... and it was still a good movie.

I read The Curate's Awakening by George MacDonald.

I traveled to see Erin Heisey with Christine Rankin. Oh, yes! Cleveland really does rock. We loved the zoo, and the Hyatt where Erin works. I loved the Cleveland Museum of Art. It's good for the imagination to see the Egyptian wing in a museum having just seen The Mummy. We stayed up late talking and talking. And even though it's been a long time, and might be a longer time, we picked up where we left off. You know when that happens that as we have been growing up, God has been growing up in us, too.

Michelle came for a too-short weekend. We attended The Beggar Folk's album release.

I learned to play Dominion with Joella's family.

Tim Nickels visited all the way from Maine! It had been seven years since we had actually talked. Again, with how God grows up in us.

I got a job at Isaac's Restaurant. I begin this week. This has been a tough couple of months regarding jobs.

Mom and Dan dropped off the truck for me to use while student teaching. It's great to have wheels!

Just today, I attended Millersville's student teacher orientation meeting: Rough. Times. In short, I don't yet have a placement for student teaching. Please don't ask about it. I'll let you know.

Hijacked from my Journal: September 10, 2010

On my way to the bus, I saw a man carrying a giant green duffel bag on his back.

(Maybe it mattered solely because I've been reading Kerouac, and maybe it was the disheveled hair and three of four days' growth of beard on his chin that made him look travel-worn.)

He turned the corner of Lemon and College,

several yards in front of me.

A few houses down, he climbed the steps slowly, to the front door of a nicely-kept house.

It was a place where a family, maybe older, certainly rich, would live. But his door was the smaller front door, where he was probably renting from the nice family.

No stir was perceptible as he entered, late morning.

I thought, "he is coming home after a long journey. And I am the only one who knows."

Literary Accountability

Instructions: Have you read more than six of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.
Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety. Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt. Tag other book nerds.

Who can resist the occasional literacy accountability from the BBC? Not me. (I snagged this from Kendra Gehman.)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

While in Chicago

I had two mid-terms to send in to my professors on the Thursday that we arrived in North Chicago. One was based on a book mentioned here already, On Being a Teacher. The other was comparing Jack Kerouac and Saul Bellow. I sat in the lobby of the Comfort Inn with my headphones in my ears, listening to Shawn McDonald as I fought to regain my consciousness. I was exhausted from the drive.

I had some reflections of value from the books. But in the end, I emailed my professor for an extension. So, do I recommend On the Road or Herzog? Meh. Not really. On the Road is good to know historically. Plus, it has the ring of some deep truths: the infinite search for purpose, and the imminent failure of it all; the likeliness of disappointment; the feel of connection to one's surroundings; what it takes to be human. But it surprised me with its sadness. Maybe it is worthwhile.

Herzog was not very reachable for me. The book is comprised of the hilarious and wordy ramblings of a highly-trained academic. I could identify with him at the strangest moments. His perspective is rather childish for a man with so much learning. I'm making it sound like I had fun reading the book. I didn't. I laid on the couch for two and a half hours and got bloodshot eyes, a strained neck, and a soppy brain out of the deal. I did, however, find this to be beautiful:

"There is a distant garden where curious objects grow, and there, in the lovely dusk of green, the heart of Moses E. Herzog hangs like a peach."

What is the difference between an event and an experience?

Balance in Autumn

Study has intensified. It's no longer a matter of my own education. The education of others seems to be hanging in the balance of this semester. I grasp wildly at information, hoping to commit it to memory. Giving up hope. Straining. Rededicating my hope to Christ. But then grasping again.

I am reading On Being a Teacher: The Human Dimension. It says the most important characteristics of a teacher are charisma, compassion, egalitarianism, and a sense of humor. I think I really agree. My favorite teachers have displayed these traits.

It talks about how teachers must live a balanced life. Our lives are on parade at all times. We have the duty to be the most well-adjusted people possible. That means, occasionally, setting down the book in hand, and going to greet fall. Unfortunately, all caveats from my professors regarding balance seem to be aimed at a time in the future, not the present. They set up a useful conundrum: maintain balance, but most of your life should be comprised of schoolwork. One might as well pay to learn the lessons of balance.

It's not their fault that I swim in books. There is probably no shortcut to understanding the lesson plan, or to creating an effective, safe classroom environment. It begs to be studied. And I feel that I am studying for dear life!

________________________

I watch from the center of an indifferent crowd, each one a mandate to give or take.

How important we all are in our glorious busyness!

Rusty fall comes in, beautiful, a friend from ages past,

magnanimously bowing boughs, dipping her head at each guest.

But I cannot move to greet her, disturbing all these guests.

I must not go to greet her, although she is my friend!

She smiles from a distance, a look of understanding.

Dear friend, mentor, forgive me!

We cannot talk for now.

I'm confined to entertain a host of urgencies.

Geese and Work

I sat on the steps near the duck pond, reading J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories. Friday was hot, you'll recall, but dry. It reminded me of Arizona, where the wind and the heat hug your body. Class was in session, so the campus was quiet. The benches around the pond were filled with students not earnestly doing work. Peace reigned in this liminal space that marked the start of class, but not the end of summer.

Then goose honking filled the air. Fast-approaching, an air raid of geese swarmed overhead, flying in three close, lopsided V's. They normally inhabit the surface of the pond and surround it with wispy white feathers, causing some commotion which fades into the background. They are the hosts of the pond, really. And yet, I did not even know they were missing until they touched down in the middle of the pond, fully exploiting their rights as both denizens and hosts of the pond.

At first, they clustered in their flying groups and faced each other, West Side Story style. Then they became one large flock once more and faced the fountain on the eastern side of the pond. Little by little, their honking ceased. They were paying obeisance to the great fountain, which kept their water from stagnating and smelling. I half expected the fountain to talk, for it seemed as though they were all waiting for something. The geese held their positions in the turning waters, for a breeze had kicked up, and their own flapping had caused the water to stir.

As slowly as their honking had stopped, they turned to their different poses of life, as if suddenly remembering this was their home and they had housekeeping, after all. They preened and squawked a little, and dived down, and pecked one another, and forgot the fountain and their warlike entrance.

I turned to work. I have two jobs right now: The Cove at Millersville, and College Corner Cafe (fondly known as The Bagel Shop) at Franklin and Marshall College. It will probably get a little complicated to work out my schedule if I keep both jobs all semester... and goodness knows what next semester will hold in the way of work, for I'll be student teaching. I'm praying now. Pray, too, for provision that I might not have to work so much.

Booklist

Hey everyone, if you have any of these books, and you'd like to give them to me, I'll reimburse you for postage! Also, this is what is in store for me for the next semester, holla!

21st Century Skills (Trilling)

Doing School (Pope)

On Being a Teacher: Human Dimension (Kottler)

What Every Teacher Should Know About Classroom Management (Levin)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz)

Herzog (Bellow)

Hours (Cunningham)

Let the Great World Spin (McCann)

Mrs. Dalloway (Woolf)

Nine Stories (Salinger)

On the Road (Kerouac)

Returning to the Earth (Harrison)

Song of Solomon (Morrison)

Surfacing (Atwood)

Differentiation (Wormeli)

Bridging English (Milner)