Rant

There is nothing worse than sitting in front of the computer, wanting to write, but not knowing what is worth writing about. I'll puke if I write something more on love or recognition of humanity. I just watched 24...all I want to do is kill Jack's brother...or that little creepy guy Tom who forced Karen to resign. I spent much of my morning in workshops....on rubrics. Thanks, I've been teaching for 5 years; if I don't know what a rubric is by now I should have my teaching license revoked. And oh, let's not forget the delightful pick-me-up in the afternoon on suicide prevention and depression. We took a quiz at the end...10 questions. I answered yes to all but one that asked if I even contemplated ending my life. I do have trouble getting out of bed, feel exhausted, not eating well, need to escape, get bursts of energy, fatigue, caring about others more than myself...I must be depressed. But the purpose was to be able to prevent suicide or notice signs. Now I know. Who has that kind of time to sit and think of ways to kill yourself. It's more fun to just let it happen. I know, a bit morbid, but think of the excitement of not knowing.
I'll tell you what almost made me yack though. In class, this big ole' mama was wearing a silky red shirt with a locket. I looked at the locket and saw a puff of chest hair instead. I'm not talking about a few strands....no, this was a clump of hair. She had a hairy chin too. It was difficult for me to concentrate after that. I kept looking at her wondering if it was a dude or just a hairy lady. I didn't come up with a conclusion. Next class I'll have to be more attentive.
Evidently, that's all I got.

65 ways to love

Admire, Adore, Amaze, Appreciate, Assist, Assure, Astonish, Bake, Believe, Breathe, Blow, Caress, Confide, Cuddle, Defend, Devote, Discover, Educate, Encourage, Excite, Guide, Hear, Hold, Honor, Hope, Imagine, Influence, Inspire, Join, Kiss, Laugh, Learn, Listen, Long, Marvel, Massage, Motivate, Nourish, Nurture, Offer, Participate, Play, Please, Praise, Pray, Protect, Provide, Respect, Respond, Rub, Smile, Soothe, Speak, Squeeze, Stimulate, Support, Teach, Thank, Tickle, Treasure, Trust, Understand, Value, Welcome, Wonder.

Ethical Dilemma

In class today we spoke of ethical decisions, of the "right" definition of ethics and morality, of what affects ethics have on our day to day life. I posed the example: You have it in your power to save one person or 500. Who do you save? Well it's obvious, the 500 my students chime in unison. Now what if the one person if your mother or father and the 500 are strangers. Now this question is different. It is still one vs. 500, but that one person means something to you. Should that change your mind? It shouldn't, but it does. We are human and can't help but allow our own feelings, our experiences, our subjectiveness to influence our decisions. How about if of the 500 half were mothers of others- young children, teens, children your age? Then what?
"It's my mom!" one student states.
"Yeah, but what if my mom was one of the 500. Then what?" a bespectacled boy with a stuffy nose calls out.
They're excited and want to talk all at once. I love it. I call out their names, five names at a time, to speak in that order and give them the floor. The less I say the better.
They deliberate over this for some time, until it is my turn to stir the pot. Could you honestly take away the mothers of hundreds of children for your own selfish sake?
Let's think of this in terms of All My Sons. Is it justifiable that Joe Keller knowingly permitted the cracked cylinders to be shipped? Many jumped the gun- well they killed 21 guys!
No, before that. Did it make sense? Put yourself in his shoes. You have a business to run. You have a family to support. You will be ruined if you do not produce. Is it justifiable? A light bulb goes off, I can see it in her eyes, then another- this one, a grin because he got it.
"Yes, it is a noble decision. He wanted to protect his family."
Is it selfish?
"No because he wanted to provide for his family. He was under a lot of pressure. You make rash decisions when you are under pressure."
I pause and listen to a girl with deep almond-shaped eyes to share a story. A story is shared about a flood. A mother trying to rescue her two children, must let one go in order to survive. A decision she must make immediately. She lets go of the infant, holding on to the 6-year old. I get goose bumps thinking of that mother, the nightmares of her child drowning, the weight of that burdened on her shoulders the rest of her life. Was her decision ethical?
"There's no right or wrong. Who's to say which kid she should have saved?"
Exactly! No right or wrong. Not black or white. Not so clear cut. Ethics isn't always so clear.
However what we can agree on is this: ethics is what is done to benefit the greater good.
Back to Joe Keller.
He made the decision to ship the cracked canisters. He hoped the military's inspectors would catch the error. They didn't. Because of him twenty-one boys/men lost their lives. Men that were not quite men yet. I call them men because they were fighting a war. Boys because they had not lived yet.
So now let's look at this as such- Joe "saved" his family, but "killed" 21 men. Ethical?
"He didn't know they would die."
You're right, but he knew the cylinders were cracked and there was a possibility the part would not work properly.
"He risked others' lives to save himself and his three family members. 3 vs. 21 not for the greater good."
"Yeah, but he didn't know it was going to be 21. What if it was only 2?"
Good question?
"Still wrong. What if it was 50?"
He still knew and sending the cylinders out knowingly was ethically wrong, regardless
of if no one died, 21 or 50. It was wrong.
Their faces in awe of what they had just tried to wrap their growing minds around.
Yes, today was a good day. When they get excited and think and talk and can actually take something away and apply it to their own lives, become observant of how they deal with ethics, with decision-making, with being fair and a good person, then my job is well worth every sacrifice, every extra hour I spend creating a lesson and losing an hour of sleep. This is what makes it all worth the time, the effort, the aggravation, the dedication, the love. All for that teaching moment when you know you've reached them all.

Effervescent

effervescent
in your presence
i escape through a pinhole and billow,
small puffs of smoke, up and through and in
and suddenly, i am with you again

Continuum

i'm still stuck inside
incapacitated by the sensation of paralysis
by the loudest sound i never heard
because i couldn't make-
it
-weighs down
churning
dipped in
copper pots of molten
spirits
grandeur impressions
preserved photographs; the corners folding over, tiny waves of intuition
scraps of paper- the notion that you are only mine
your name
transcendent captivation of one single inhalation of your essence
essentially all i ever want

banishing the inevitable
coaxing Time along to take that memory with Him
go on, i've no use for it
it pains me to revoke that
uncanny lightness in the air; it lingers for days, nestled in my forehead
the trace of you is left on me
the hint, retained in my nostril
until you have left and I struggle to inhale deep
up until my temples pound
constant warming
struggling to remember

and i am left

wanting
to
guard
every
last
ounce of you
away deep inside me
where noone can take you away
even if i ask them to

Brad Pitt- take me away

Brad Pitt. That's all you need to know. You won't be disappointed.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mx7eufPeAg&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjQ7BjNbGIs&mode=related&search=

Ancient Greek ruins

Today I feel like this.

Sense II, installment # 21

Sense: Part II (Working title)
Sense Installment # 21 (continued from September 17, 2006)

“How ‘bout some dancin’,” he roars as he enters the living room.

He hits play on the tape player and "The Rhythm of the Night" blasts out of the towering speakers. I find my girlfriends. I try not to make eye contact with Pete. I discern eyes on me, but I look at my friends lip synching. He has manipulated me. I am now vulnerable and try to feel the groove and dance. I try to dance and enjoy it. He is lipping every other word to the song. We dance and move and my girls look at me, trying to pry some information out of me.

“Tell us,” they ask eventually practically in unison.

“Tell you what,” I shrug with a shutter, “there’s nothing to tell.

“Well,” asks Ellena, “did you kiss?”

My eyes begin to squint. I hold back a smile, it breaks through.

“Yeah we kissed,” a squeak comes from my mouth. I sound excited and confident.

“Yah!” my girls shriek. I feel juvenile, like I shouldn’t be telling about such a private moment. Why all of a sudden is this moment private? He’s across the room still, past the coffee table his hips sway and nearly tip the ashtray. His back is towards me now. He selects a cigarette off the dining room table, Crowns, Camels, Marlboro red, lights, and menthol. Lights it with his engraved Zippo lighter-PZ-reflects off the metal. I watch him blow curls of clouds out of his mouth, it lingers in front of his face like I am meant to step through the fog to find him.

What leaves you in awe?

Monday morning the principal's voice came over the p.a. system, cracked, shaky, visible to the listener that he had been crying or at least on the verge. "Tragedy.....young boy.....Anthony....cancer....died this weekend....moment of silence".
You hear these words and you almost don't know how to react in school. around students. where you are supposed to appear strong.
My class, a homeroom full of sleepy seniors, all looked up and for a few moments I saw sentiment buried in their eyes. They looked upset, moved, until the silence broke and the signal to move to period one was soundeded. Ostensible Monday morning repetitiveness sunk in, concealing some deeper unrequited question of what? why? how?
The day, amorphous, irrefutable that for a Monday it felt like a Sunday or a day we shouldn't be there.
Period 4 rolled around and no word had been uttered about the announcement of a student in our school dying of cancer. We weren't supposed to bring it up...that's the protocol we were supposed to follow. If it's brought up, listen, if not, go along with the day's schedule. Absurd in a way, but honestly I didn't know how to bring it up either.
That morning we pulled a journal prompt from the jar of journals perched a top of my bookcase and a student read it, "What would you do if Bid Bird...." he was cut off. "Throw it away" "Oh come on!" "Seriously!" Garbage. Done. Second prompt, "What do you find inspiring about the world. What leaves you in awe?"
And they wrote for some time. I wasn't quite prepared for the responses, transcendent entries that exposed their true selfless views on life, love and being them....

The reliability of the sun day in and day out
The way a woman's body changes when she carries a baby
That feeling you get before you kiss somoene for the first time
What are finger nails
The way hair still grows even though it's dead
Selflessness
Compassion
Faith in someone's heart who has only been beaten and abused, but they still believe
The idescribable taste of water
The miracle of plastic surgery. The void that is felt even after your body is worth more in pastic than it was before.
The things you see in darkness
The way we see colors
People's generosity
The way the heart works Undeniable. Devoted. Keeps on pumping.
The love you have for someone else that far surpasses any love for anything
A child's firts step, first word, first breath.
Last breath
The desire to live
The desire to die
The inability to let go
The lack of control in our own lives.
The power of one person to make a difference
Smiles
Laughs that are contagious
Hiccups
Manic squirrels racing sideways on my fence
The way a friend is there
not ony when you need him the most, but when it is most inconvenient for him.
The discernible flavor of salt water in your lips
The sun warming your shoulders that first day of summer
The infinite number of grains of sand
The possibilities
The lack of fear
Fear itself
Holding back
Holding on
Letting go
Missing someone
Heartache
How it hurts inside when you try so hard not to show
Persistence
Simplicity of life
The Complexity we contrive
Ancient ruins and how they still stand
imagining another lifetime
Change
Growth
Staying the same
Same basic needs
Carnal desires
Animal instincts
Leaving an imprint


That day we left the class feeling as though the weight of the world was on our shoulders, but at the same time we could handle it and toss it up in the air if we so chose to. Having cried, emptied our souls, our true views, we left with our eyes wider open, holding the door for others. Pressing lips in understanding, clenching hands, rubbing shoulders and backs. A catharsis of latent emotions that were covered and buried away under some boulder of self-imposed exile of youth, detachment from normalcy, from this make-shift fictionalized reality we live in where tv and movies and super rock stars and ultra famous idols dictate our lives. Manufactured and packaged and that is supposed to make us happy. For high school students, for any of us that can be hard to grasp; sometimes in the midst we get so caught up in scope of what makes us cool and what will satiate us. Cemented in our hearts is the truth about contentment. It's not in stuff, it's in people. It's in what was here thousands of years ago. It's the fact that it's still here. It's the notion that we are really just specs, we are temporary, we are essentially an organism that is born, lives and dies. And all the stuff in the world that wasn't here hundreds of years ago; that was not needed to make people smile or happy, all that will remain and all you'll have is what you are, what you put into becoming. You have to ask yourself that after all that shit that takes up room in your closet, under you bed, in your basement or attic is left behind. Afteryour car and your clothes and jewelery and fancy china remain here, will you be happy with just you. Will you be able to live an eternity with being you?