sigh

Enough of the doldrums. It's summer and I'm determined to enjoy it. Or at least the three days out of seven that I'm not teaching summer school. :)

Good stuff going on:

Saw "Hangover" and laughed hysterically. I usually avoid physical and crass humor (probably the only person you know who can't stand "Something About Mary"), but I walked into this movie needing a ridiculous, stupid story.

My mom came to visit and took lots of adorable photos of the grandkids. I'm choosing one to pick out for my classroom as soon as I finish this post.

I started swimming again. The silence of the pool is beautiful.

Old men and seas

In the last week of school, my students read this short novel. Why? they asked. Because it is good, I said. Because it is an easy read with a lot to think about. Because it offers perspective fitting for the end of the year.

As I read it with them, I came to my own epiphany. I am afraid that one day my tenacity will kill me. I am not very good at letting go. I don't want to end my life with nothing to show save the carcass of something great.

No Exit

Hell is not other people, it is needing other people. Take the extreme case. I can't imagine the horror of being trapped in my own body without being able to control my own physical movements, make my own decisions, or communicate unaided. If it is true that our greatest strength can be our greatest weakness, that is certainly the truth with cooperation.

My husband has been playing the video game Spore. He pointed out that my 5-year-old logic of herbivores=good and carnivores=bad is flawed in more ways than one. Carnivores are apparently much more cooperative animals than herbivores. Huh. The cynic in me says that relying so much on others justifies the need to kill other sentient creatures now and then.

Bartleby

My husband and I are a bit like Turkey and Nippers of the "Bartleby" story. When one is up, the other down. And yet the balance functions-to a degree.

cracking

I hate not being in control of myself. I have a coworker, the first person I've ever met in my life to overtly despise me, who makes a big deal about how tough she is and how hard her life is. Remind me never to do that.

There are two hairline cracks in our kitchen tile. It's a new house, some shifting and expanding of the concrete is to be expected. I didn't worry. Last year, a contractor friend of ours was over and shook his head when he saw the cracks, saying, "That's really bad." He predicted that the crack would slowly spread across the floor, maybe over the course of a year or two. I'm happy to report that it is exactly the same size today. Now we're just waiting for the Big One that makes Sunday's mag 5 in LA look tiny.

naming

To name is to know.

"We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language." -Benjamin Lee Whorf

And, I would add, in names.

As a mediocre but persistent athlete, a student, a teacher, a colleague, and a mom, I know the power of using someone's name. People calling my name have made me run faster, try harder, and listen more carefully.

I'm lucky that so far remembering students' names hasn't been too difficult. When I proctored the standardized test for another teacher's students a month ago, I learned their names quickly even while they rarely spoke. Now they say hi to me between classes.

My pet peeve is a colleague calling me solely by my last name. As in, "How does it feel to lose, Phelps?" At first it didn't bother me when I taught in another district--just felt like I was on a sports team all the time. Then I realized that the reason people called each other by last names is because the turnover rate was so high that no one bothered to learn everyone's first names.

Names are intimate.

My relatives, particularly ones I see rarely, cycle through the family tree when they talk to me. I get called by the names of my mother, my grandmother, my cousins, you name it. (Excuse the pun.) I admit that I've done the same even in my own immediate family, usually when I'm reacting quickly out of annoyance.

Naming goes beyond simply showing someone that you remember. In fact, I eavesdropped with interest on the conversation of a consultant/teacher at a certain popular coffee shop. He complained that the class he taught met so rarely that it was always difficult to remember names. "I know who they are," he insisted. "I know about them, their personalities, their interests, their families, how they write ... but I forget their names." Despite reviewing the list quickly before each class, he confessed that there were plenty of awkward moments in which he couldn't use their names. "But they all remember my name," he ended a bit guiltily.

I know that guilt of getting it wrong. I remember how it felt as a top student in the class getting called by someone else's name and thinking that this teacher obviously thought I wasn't important enough to remember. Even when it was an obvious mistake, I distanced myself from that class for the rest of the year.

Last Thursday, with only a few weeks left in the school year, I distributed graduation stoles to a group of seniors being recognized in an academic ceremony. Each stole had the student's name embroidered on one side. It's amazing how important that personalization (worth a whopping $2) was to them. And yet, two names were misspelled. Today I returned those stoles to our vendor to get them fixed. After four years of high school and innumerable hoops to jump, the least we can do is get their names right.

learned a new word

roue:

Etymology:
French, literally, broken on the wheel, from past participle of rouer to break on the wheel, from Medieval Latin rotare, from Latin, to rotate; from the feeling that such a person deserves this punishment
Date:
1800

: a man devoted to a life of sensual pleasure : rake
(From Merriam-Webster online)

...which led me to wonder about the etymology of "rake."

"debauchee," 1653, shortening of rakehell (1547), possibly an alteration (by association with rake (1) and Hell) of M.E. rakel (adj.) "hasty, rash, headstrong," probably from raken "to go, proceed," from O.E. racian, of unknown origin. Rakish first recorded 1706.

(From Online Etymology Dictionary)

But my favorite neologism was coined Friday by a student, unaware that such a word already exists in the Urban Dictionary:

euphobia