Esto Vir

Cal called to tell us that he was accepted into the Dominicans. He will start his novitiate this summer. I feel a sense of completeness - a long road that has reached its end. A new road lies ahead. You know they must walk it alone. You are also on the road, but it is their road, not yours.

Here's the start.

It's the end of a long night of poker, cigarettes, and beer. 23 or 24 years ago. I'm alone with Uncle C, known to the world as Fr. Damian Fandal, teacher, interim President of U. Dallas, Provincial of the Central Province, TV personality. As usual, he'd separated all of us from the stray nickels and dimes we'd laid in wager. He'd also humored me with his argument about why women shouldn't be priest. "Of course" he says "you are a heretic, but that's okay." In response I say to him something inane and then told him, "Uncle C, since you can't acknowledge your own children," we both laugh at the absurdity of the statement, "I think we'll name our first son after you." When I told her, Mo laughed and said, yes, it was a great idea. And so Callery got his name, and, I guess, his calling.

Uncle C died too young, but I do feel that a small part of his spirt will live on with his namesake who has accepted the same challenge in life.

National Portait Gallery

I had an hour to kill and was still in museum mode. Mo and Sam were well out of museum mode, in fact, they are rarely in museum mode, so I decided to take the hour before we met Meg and Cal for dinner and visit the National Portrait Gallery. Unlike the other Smithsonian's that close at 5:00, the Portrait Gallery closes at 7:00. An hour is not a very long time to visit a new museum, so I went right to the Info. Desk and asked what I should visit. They were very helpful and suggested a portrait exhibit that was closing the next week and the Presidential Portrait Gallery. Both were wonderful - I could have spent much more time. I am generally not drawn to portraits, but the Presidential portraits were compelling. With each painting there was a brief biography with some key fact about the man, not just history. It again reminded me of the importance of story telling in art. Yes, the painting exists as an object of beauty in itself, but a story, or history, can make the piece come alive for the viewer in a completely different way.

One thing did strike me in viewing the Presidential Portraits - the art of portrait painting had declined. The masters are of the past, not the present - at least in painting. I suspect photography is where the art of portrait had now gone. Don't get me wrong, the recent portraits were compelling, but they were not the same as the older portraits. In some ways they were more flat. In the older portraits, you could see the joy or pain in the eyes of the man. I think it was the eyes that I focus on - the windows to the soul - and some did show the wear and tear of power. I saw the decline sometime around Grant. The only recent painting I stayed with one the abstract portrait of Kennedy. Ifs form did reflect the man and the time - a jumble of unclarity and the sense of something unfinished.

Unfortunately, the Museum was closing and as I walked out I passed numerous rooms that teased me and drew me to them. Oh well, next time I'll have to allot more time to the NPG.

Embrace

Smiles in the silence
Beautiful flowers bloom wide
Embrace our father

Smiling

They, mostly, are smiling. Warm smiles. Shy smiles. Look into the camera and smile. The smiles make it all the more poignant. They were 20, and 21, and 22, so young that they could be my child. There was one young woman, 20, caught reading, a smile about to spread on her face. Her name was Jennifer Marie Parcells. 20 and brave. She, no, they, could have been the future of the world, but their smiles will only shine in the brief silence of the roll call of the dead at the end of the NewsHour. We tell our children,"waste not, want not" and yet we waste the lives of so many, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but everywhere in our history.

For years, I read about Viet Nam and wondered how it could have happened. Now we see history repeat itself, even when we followed Santayana's advice and desperately tried to examine our history in the hopes of not repeating it - for nought. Perhaps, it is simply fate and Vonnegut was right - "so it goes"...and smile for the camera

Snow Day

They came in anticipating the news - snow. There is a palpable excitement for what students feel is a stolen day. No where to go and a clean coverlet of white to disguise the scars of the urban landscape. Ahhh - Halo till their eyes fall plop,plop out of their heads. Some teachers are equally as excited. I must admit that I like snow days, but not too many since they eat into the clear, sunny days of June. I would also prefer a day mid-way between Winter and Spring Breaks. For now, hours before the winter deluge, (hyperbole, I know, but its been a bad snow year) I'll try to keep a level head and hope for a delay.

The Historian

I went to the library and got a book on tape. I hadn't listened to a book for a long time because Sam and I, while commuting to school and back, have been listening to sports stations or Colin (until Sam can't take it anymore). I thought I'd listen when he's not in the car. I picked the The Historian without knowing anything about it but just remembering that someone said it was great. Sam moans when he gets into the car and it is on - I forgot to turn it off. In order to act like I'm really in charge, I tell him to be quiet, I want to listen for a little while. Eureka - he gets hooked. The book is a page turner about vampires, but is well written with many fine turns of phrase and images. Now I can't listen to it without him in the car.

I love it. It's so important to find that thread of connection with your children, who you love so much that even you can't understand it. The two of us look forward to getting in the car and listening - together. It connects and joins us in a common endeavor. I love that he loves the story and the words and the images. That excitement resonates in his voice when he talks about the book with me.

Each day is a treasure. A small jewel to set aside in my box of memories. He turns 16 this weekend and that means he'll be driving and the eventual loss of our joint commute. Yea, being his chauffeur is a pain, but it's also painful to think of its ending.

The smile

It was a silly pun, a bad joke, but she smiled. I realize that she'd never actually smiled at me or one of my comments. She'd always snarled or ignored me. I guess it didn't help that I kept tossing her from class and exiling her to a quiet room next to my classroom. She struggled in class because she can't read well, or write for that matter. I think that classroom anger is more of a result of fear of failure than anything else. For those of us who love the classroom and easily fit into the standard societal mode, it is hard for us to understand these students. As a result, we butt heads and when authority is challenged, especially the thin shred of teacher authority, the reaction tends to be an overreaction. This is what happened with me and this student. For several reasons, one being she would not come to my class for a few weeks, a middle ground was found and I was able to help her. She is no longer in my class and now, without the oppressive performance expectations hanging over our heads, she is free to be human and kind, as I am. Today she smiled for the first time, and I can smile for the first time in a long time as well.

Me and Humbaba

Time flies. It's hard to believe how long its been since I blogged. Of course, I'm blogging on two class blogs so I'm fulfilling part of my need to write in those venues. However, its fun to have this break and see how frustrated I was when I last blogged. A lot has changed. We started a new semester and the problem girls have been out of the POD. It is truly amazing how quiet and calm the POD has become with the simple absence of two people. I really like my new classes. I start the day off with an honors class and its great to work with receptive minds. We started reading Gilgamesh two days ago. Now, Gilgamesh is my favorite epic, but I'm usually an interested audience of one. Yesterday, we were reading aloud and I was comparing the text to sections of Genesis. When I was done with the comparison, I decided to stop reading aloud and was going to summarize the rest of the tablet. They were outraged - they wanted to read the whole tablet, aloud and in class. I was stunned with happiness. Today I made the error of telling them that Humbaba would be killed and several of them were audibly upset - they were so into the tale that they were outraged I would give away a key fact before we read it. This is going to be fun.

I spoke to Adam yesterday, and they are interested in continuing our talks. I'm interested and it looks better than I had hoped.

Mr. Negative

Two incidents have bothered me this week and it made me realize how often we tend to focus on the negatives in life rather than look for the positive. I have a particularly difficult student who I constantly find breaking the most basic rules of the school. I'm not the only one, but she is convinced that I am the root of all her issues. We have a dress code and she is constantly out of dress code. She is a nexus of trouble, on her cell phone in school, swearing in the hall, getting into fights, destroying school property. She had been suspended five times since school started. I e-mail her mother all the time trying to figure out how to prevent her from failing the class and convincing her that she should behave. I have excused assessments and allowed late assignments for all her work. Nothing works - her mother wrote to say she thinks I am picking on her and yet I'm only a small percentage of her 15 referrals to the Principal.

As students were on their way to lunch, I saw this young woman in the locker bay in front of my class leaning up against the lockers with a young man grabbing her hips and beginning to grind. Of course, I call to them to stop and bring the young man into my classroom to tell him that he could get into trouble for that type of physical contact. He tells me I'm picking on him.

Some days I think it would easier to simply shut the door and ignore, but I just can't. I must have some OCD thing about following rules.

So I'm depressed. Then I remember another student, who fought me all last year. She stopped to tell me she liked my class and learned a lot. I think most of my students like me, but the greatest amount of feedback is the negative. Ironically, I think that is true for students as well. Teachers tend to tell them what they did wrong, not what they did right. I think I'll try to say a positive comment to each of my students this week and thank them for their efforts.

Well, maybe not all of them....

Finals

A crazy week ended and a new one will begin. Finals begin on Wednesday and then a new semester begins the next week. It's a time of new beginnings and new opportunities. It is somewhat odd because amidst the newness is the fatigue of mid-year. I am looking forward to the new semester. I have an honors group, which I think will challenge me and visa verse. I also have my contemporary literature class, which I really hope to experiment with a new writing focus and individual project work. They will each pick a book, short story and poet and teach them to the class. I will work with them to develop ideas and presentations. I hope it is fun for all of us.

Cal's countdown continues. Graduation and, with the blessing, acceptance into the Dominicans. Sam got one of the leads, Skye Masterson in Guys and Dolls so the excitement continues.

Recovering

Back to school and all its craziness. Cal and Meg left on Sunday and I haven't decided if the house is back to normal or not. Is it possible that normal is when Cal and Meg are not here? It's odd - they are happy, as we are, when they come home. There is no greater excitement or anticipation than when they come home. Yet, I sense there is some relief on their part when they go back to school. Oddly, while I can't say its relief, there is a sense or normalcy when its just Mo, Sam and me. I fight the idea that it is sad. Life does go on and I force myself to look forward and see the positive of life changes. The problem with high school and college is that life is boxed into 4 year segments and that makes time speed up. And, really, it's not quite 4 years since the junior and senior year are, in our time, as much about looking ahead and enjoying the present. We do so hurt ourselves by always looking forward instead of seeing today.

I was involved in an odd incident in school today. We had a big meeting about behavior and then a separate meeting was held with 20-30 students who are chronically in trouble, suspended, and disrespectful and a specialist in these behavioral issues. I was talking to a senior about strategies to get her into Middlebury when I heard a noise that I thought was a fight. As it turned out, it was 6-8 of these troubled students in the hallway - I guess returning to class. As soon as they saw me they laughed derisively. I decided to ignore them and went back towards my room and continued my discussion. Then one of the girls said loud enough for me and the student to hear "Hey, there is more of us, we can jump him." I can't say I felt threatened, but it was definitely meant as a threat. I thought about it a little after and contempated how it is a short jump from verbal threat to action. I'm frustrated that my colleagues and too many teachers in too many schools have to put up with this type of verbal abuse. The bright light in all this chaos was my discussion with my former student, who wasn't a big fan of my class. It was a delight to see her growing up and realizing her talents and beginning to apply them. That is why teachers teach.

Holidays on the road

My holiday week. Up on Saturday, 12/23 and on the road to Baltimore by 5:30 AM. Visit my brother, great time; drive to Jeanne and Jake's in Westminster. Dinner. Up early and go to Gettysburg, PA to visit Ajou and Pa Pa's grave. My heart aches every time I'm in Gettysburg. I miss them and I miss the wonderful times we had as a family while we were visiting. I wonder how hard it must be for Mo. I'm rarely nostalgic, but I'm always so when I now go to Gettysburg. Even now I have that hollow feeling writing about it. Oh, well. Drive back to Westminster. Dinner and open gifts. Jake makes up a game for every Christmas. This year it was Family Feud. It was a lot of fun. Jake truly is the salt of the earth, as Ajou always said. Wake up early and drive to Kathy's for dinner with 40, count them, 40 relatives. She did a great job and it was great to see so many people. Drive back to Westminster. Up early and on the road by 6:30 AM and return to CT. Can't sleep. Next day we drive to Providence to see Baka and Pop. Drive home.

Crash and write bills, do some year end tax work, correct unit tests, start on essays. Sunday, drive to Providence for Baka's birthday party at Cathy's - it was great. Cathy and Baka gave us a wonderful picture album. My sense is that my parents are beginning to empty their house and give items to all of us. It's healthy and good. They are 79 and 80. Drive to Boston. Hang and celebrate New Years with Rick and Lisa. Meg and Sam were with us. Cal stayed home and had a small party. 2007 will be a big year for him and us as he graduates and decides on the priesthood. I'm sure it will happen for him, but it is still up in the air and in God's hands. Drive home and write lesson plans.

What a holiday! I'm almost grateful to go back to school.

Adieu

Change has always been a part of my life. As an Army brat, I used to move every year and a half or three years. I'm used to meeting people, connecting with them, and then saying goodbye with the expectation of never seeing them again or seeing them next week - it was all the same. I find the same sense of personal change and connection in my Trinity classes. You meet a new group of people, perhaps a few you knew from other classes, you spend time each week talking and exposing small bits of yourself. You grow comfortable with the group and then, poof, it all ends.

I will particularly miss this class because it was an unusual, mixed group of grads and undergrads; the young and not so young. I will also miss it because no other class had such an immediate impact on my daily life, communication skills, and work life. This blog will continue in one form or another and will be a legacy of the class. My class blog is another legacy and probably now takes more of my time than this one. It will be interesting to see if I continue to write here or create anew - we'll see

Simple

I was intrigued by Fimoculous and absolutely loved Indexed. With my ongoing obsession with the way the blogs look and how that attracts readers, I always try to both react naturally and analyse a blog when I first view it (how stupid does that sound). I've come to realize I like darker colors and clean lines, certainly a feature of Fimoculous. I also like sites that I can learn something from, or one that makes me laugh. Fimoculous also attracted me because it gave me a limited number of blog choices that someone took the time to vet. This, I realize, is also important to me. I love books but get depressed in bookstores, especially the big ones. There is so much I want to read, but I can't read them all, and I can't decide , and I walk out even more depressed than I entered, without a book. I like it when someone says,"hey, read this." I was in a book club several years ago and read some great books. I read more often because I had a deadline and the opportunity to discuss what I read. When I think about it, my blog is an opportunity to fill the discussion void when I now read or see something. I think many of us attend graduate classes to read and discuss and use the furthering of our education as the excuse to do so.

Now, Index. I liked it because of its visual simplicity, its humor, and its thoughtful complexity. I believe that poetry, specifically haiku, is a wonderfully thought provoking literary art form. These seemingly silly little cartoons also force you to think, and then think again. It's neat to think about a person who thinks in terms of words and the visual. Cartoonist obviously fit into this category. It is an art form we take for granted, but it can frame or dissect an issue more effectually than many, many words. I use the Cagle site in class when I teach Dante to discuss how Dante uses words to create visual images that satirize the person or topic. My students always remember the cartoon not Dante - some teacher.

Having convinced, OK, coerced my 15 year old to let me onto his My Space site, for research purposes mind you, and viewed his friends, including two of my niece’s sites, my academic analysis is list below:

Ouch! Argh! Eeek! Stooooooooooooooooopppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp!

As a parent, my reaction is

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Now, ethical dilemma - does a graduate student doing a class project tell his in-laws that their daughters are posing and posting pictures of themselves on My Space for their, obviously (uncle talk) lowlife, red neck, someone needs to slap you around boyfriend (can’t she do better than that) or assume that as a caring parent they are fully aware (i.e. sneaking on to her site) of their daughter’s technological forays into to this, obviously benighted, evil, gosh, Joe Lieberman was right, cyber world of ours.

Conversation over phone:

Jim: Hey, it’s Jim. Happy holidays.
In-laws: Jim who? Oh, my god! What’s wrong? Who’s hurt?
Jim: No one. Gee, why do you ask?
In-laws: In 24 years as a brother –in-law, you’ve never called us. So we were concerned. Sorry…so, what’s happening?
Jim: Oh, nothing much. I just happened to be surfing the net, specifically My Space, for my graduate class at Trinity College.
In-laws: What the hell kind of college has a class where you cruise My Space? Is it one of those internet colleges? What is it called, Phoenix something…
Jim: Let’s not go there. So, how is your daughter doing? Hey, how’s her My Space site doing?
In-laws: (Silence)

All joking aside, I was appalled by what I saw. I know that it is silly. I work with teenagers in school all day long. Still, what I saw reinforced the concerns that everyone has talked about. My own son’s account was benign, probably a function of being grounded so often for grades he can’t spend time being more creative. Besides he’s a boy and it was intriguing how less mature and open they were than the girl’s sites. I felt like a voyeur. I asked my son, and will ask my students, why does everyone post pictures of themselves? Hasn’t anyone been watching TV? He posted a picture of himself and his sister. He says he’s from down south but his picture shows them wearing Red Sox gear at Fenway. No, he’s no 007. The talk about parents, drugs, alcohol, the bad grammar and spelling…I think I’ll block My Space and then call Lieberman’s office to apologize for that Lamont vote.

Wow, I’m depressed. I’m going to bed. I think I’ll dosomething adult and mind expanding. I’m going to watch “The Girls Next Door”

I am still interested in the question of why and how people choose to read a blog. I believe there is a something to be learned from the marketing world. I found several articles that appear inter sting. The first is on how incredibly fast most people make decisions as tho whether they will stop at a site, which is must be driven by the visual. There seems to be some debate about the actual time frame, but no matter what, it is very short. There is also a book , see review, on the issue and the focus appears to be visually based - color and clean lines. I thought this academic article was also interesting.

There is also this blog about the the visual being as important as the writer’s content.

I came, I saw, I blogged

I was building a PowerPoint for tomorrow's class and I came across this little gem about blogging while looking for new templates with which to wow my students. I thought it had some merit. It points to the community building aspects of blogs, their personal and professional natures, and the wide variations that makes blogs so difficult to define. The Crabby Office Lady is the column. By the way, poor Caesar must roll in his grave whenever his words are reused for our mundane purposes.

Thanksgiving, 2006 - the race

The wind was driving the heavy rain into my ear. My shoes were soaked and I shook my head like a dog to get rid of the drops of water hanging heavy on the bill of my hat. I was in the second mile of the Manchester Road Race, going up the hill with over ten thousand other runners. The woman next to me said to her running partner, “Well, this is one we’ll tell stories about” and she was right. There was pouring rain, a strong wind, and sheets of water slipping down the hill, and I was happy. Mo, Meg, Sam and I were running together while Cal held down the fort at home. Last year we missed the race because we went to Nancy’s in Virginia for Thanksgiving. Now, the chi was being brought back into balance – the god’s of the race knew we’d missed the snow last year and decided to reward us with cold, wind swept rain to make up for it.

Baka, Pop, Cathy and Art and their friend, John, came for Thanksgiving. Dave and Darsie cancelled at the last moment and Tom and Julie went to Long Island, so this year was smaller than usual, but it was great. It was such a relaxed day. Ironically, our dishwasher broke last night, but it made the day even better. We stood at the sink and washed dishes while others dried. We talked and laughed and called to wash instead of dry– just like the old days. I told Cal how I used to wash dishes with my grandfather and how I always remember him telling me that you had to use water so hot it would scald you if you kept you hand in it. For a brief moment, he was with me again – I was him passing on the same lesson. I guess that is what holidays are for – to remember and create memories.

The race got the day off to a perfect start. This was the first year we’d all ran together. Meg talked about how they used to come and watch me race, and no matter how carefully they looked they never saw me. If we can get Cal to run, it will be even more fun. It was a good race –Meg and I finished together, holding hands as we crossed the finish line. Sam was an easy five minutes ahead of us. I saw Mo about 100 yards ahead of us and told Meg we should speed up and catch her at the finish line. She said she didn’t have it in her to speed up and that I should go ahead. I said no - I would finish with her. Some things are small gifts God gives us and finishing with Meg was my gift for today. Carpe diem. Next year, next year we’ll catch up together and finish win together.

Blogging and the person

I have been thinking about why I blog - especially since I felt challenged last class. It was interesting to have one's blog analyzed while you sat there. I think the issue was my statement that I am not interested in writing my blog for an audience, that it would evolve into a record for me - and those who have begun to read this site. I stand by that statement despite the obvious fact that I am careful about what I write. I think I have found the answer in the article that Colin posted about blogs. While I write for myself, I am very much aware, especially during this time while in class, that others will be reading the blog (the article talked about blogs existing between private and public space). I also find that people in class, and at least one person outside of class, respond more positively to my personal posts than class related posts, so I am even more aware of their style and content. I guess what I was trying to say was that I don’t see myself trying to create an audience for this blog, and, therefore, shaping it for that audience. I am writing for myself, but recognizing that someone might drop in my ego requires some style and care.

I also think the blog represents my personality, which tends to be careful and formal, and that, by the way, is what interests me about the visuals of blogs. I changed my blog when Aldon commented on it and I saw it through someone else's eyes. It was boring and did not represent me. I realized that I needed to change the code and reflect my love of art, words, and living in a pleasant, colorful place. The blog is my cyber home and I wanted it to reflect me.

I think we are attracted to blogs in the way we are attracted to people, albeit in a superficial way). We instinctively search for visual clues that subliminally inform us if we have something in common with this person and should stay and connect. Visuals tell us about the person and either attracts us or not. The same thing happens with blogs – we look and are either interested or not. My question is what are those visuals and do we consciously or unconsciously build them into our blogs.

Information and me

I gave a presentation to my colleagues about my teacher blog. As a result, there are now two more blogs in the world. It was really cool when they came up to me to show me their blogs, as if I really knew what I was doing. Both are much younger than me and I took absurd pleasure in being able to introduce them to new technology. On the internet age is not an issue. One is an intern who is a UCONN masters student and she talked about how this would be able to help her communicate to her teacher. I really appreciate all that everyone of you have taught me. This technology has really helped me open up new avenues of expression and information gathering and communication.