hee hee hee.
My kid and Idealist Savant are on the phone right now having a philosophical discussion about abolitionists and political activism... "boycott, boycott, don't eat at restaurants! don't take busses! and you know what? the bus driver was losing money, and you know what? Some white people joined in because they thought Martin Luther King was right! But some people still don't think that he's right... most white people..."
She doesn't get tired. I don't understand it because this morning I rousted her out of bed and the house before 7:15, I hauled ass with her in the trailer, and got her a breakfast by 7:30, and she hates getting up in the mornings.
Meanwhile I made it to campus, parked and got to my classroom over ten minutes before it started and then proceeded, of course, to sweat rivers down my escote... Sigh. Class was fun, we learned a list of Hellenisms and all their Italian counterparts (professor is an Italian linguist) to the Spanish or English words. I have to remember not to talk too much, it just pains me when the professor asks a question that is sooooooo obvious and there is a dead silence in the air for over a minute... I can't bear it... My class was fun too. I have a good, if somewhat strangely homogeneous group (there are so many of them, it has to be more than 30), they are engaged and nod understandingly as I give them in-depth and totally anal retentive (yes) explications of the finer grammatical points that they have no necessity of really knowing... I made everyone stop and take a few minutes to reflect on Martin Luther King, and why it was important to think about human rights, and the privileges that we have, and I taught the words for equality and injustice. True ,this is only their second quarter of language, but I think, what better way to get them interested in the language but through things that I am passionate about. I tied that into Bachelet and the results of the Chilean elections. Thanks to Sole, who last night gave me a crash course tutorial replete with thorough yet concise and precise analysis of her strengths, weaknesses, history and authority. I briefly discussed torture and the new trend of left-ward leaning governments being elected in Latin America. Then I got on with my lesson about indirect object pronouns and the verbs that love them.
I always leave feeling totally happy and at one with the world. Of course this feeling soon wears off, but today I ran into an ex-student at the café - a really interesting man, probably around 60, and African American man who had been in Vietnam. He is the kindest man, so effusive and warm, grateful for my teaching. He told me he loved my energy, and not in that hippie woo-woo fucking yoga consuming Californian way, it made me feel like things are still a little worthwhile, in fact as we talked, I found myself telling him about the fact that I am still so hopeful for the future (this truly shocked me that I would watch those words march out of my mouth in a vaporistic procession). But it is true, I am suddenly hopeful... Listening to I. talk about gender/racial/socio-economic equality as if it were the most obvious and logical choice... My student was talking about repatriating Africa... I wonder what it would feel like to feel that there was a place to go home to, I mean truly go home to, even if you had never been there. I know maybe I am supposed to feel that way about Israel. I know my mom would be happy if that were the case, but alas, it is not, nor will it, likely, ever be. As a child, during my Mafia obsessed stage, I imagined Sicilian landscapes as the home that I was meant to have and didn't. I still pine for Miramar in ways that are baffling and thrilling all at the same time. My childhood home I have no desire to ever see again. And D.F. - God we were watching clips from Mexican films at the turn of century... 1897... I have nostalgia for other times, but places? When will I ever find a place that tells me I am home? How will I know. I don't want to wander forever.
I drove the car again today. It fills me with terror and at the same time a secret glee. I am overcoming my demons... I am conquering my fears. I suppose the big test will be taking the highway somewhere by my own instigation. But that can wait. I didn't crash, and I only stalled once as I was pulling into the TJ's parking lot, actually right on the ramp in to drop of my very last videos - Head On, The Black Stallion (Ford Coppolla did this one, I had no idea) and Kinsey, which I watched with my mom until 1 in the morning (fun and interesting, but not mind shattering, though a dorky Liam Neeson with slightly sagging skin and ripped abs was a sight for sore eyes) on Friday after we were drinking wine with my neighbors and admitting that I was the one that made the brownies.
Ah yes, but I digress. So, my curtains are hung, my bed is rotated and my bedroom rearranged and my rug underneath vaccuumed for the first time in (cringe heartily) a year and a half (in my defense, up until two months ago I never vaccuumed once in this house, I wasn't the designated driver... of course all that has changed, and I re-hung paintings that had been taken down, and shifted seating arrangements, and framed my newly de-molded directors's chairs that catch the afternoon sunlight, with plants, real live ones that I haven't killed and have indeed remembered to water. I have two plants mounted on the wall in front of my kitchen window, and I am keeping the dishes done as soon as I finish a meal. I even finished my paper that was exactly one month late, yesterday and emailed it to my professor. Ugh. This is the first time that I have been late with an assignment... ever. Wait, no, I had to ask for a two day extension on a animation programming project my Senior year of college because I had had to fly to NH for the weekend for the obstetrician, and hadn't had the capabilities to work from home (this was pre-Mac conversion). So I am amazed that I could even deign to give myself a whole month... but then I just couldn't seem to work this break. Getting a whole 20 hours to myself may have had something to do with my boosted productivity, or maybe it was just the euphoria of meeting new people. I.S. gives the following advice: expand your social circle, expand, expand, expand! She suggests going out with everyone and anyone that suggests it, male, female or anywhere in between. That sounds like I might shoot myself in the foot when I should be locked in my castle reading, but I am having lunch tomorrow and hosting a dinner party Friday night. Again, like with the car, baby steps...
She doesn't get tired. I don't understand it because this morning I rousted her out of bed and the house before 7:15, I hauled ass with her in the trailer, and got her a breakfast by 7:30, and she hates getting up in the mornings.
Meanwhile I made it to campus, parked and got to my classroom over ten minutes before it started and then proceeded, of course, to sweat rivers down my escote... Sigh. Class was fun, we learned a list of Hellenisms and all their Italian counterparts (professor is an Italian linguist) to the Spanish or English words. I have to remember not to talk too much, it just pains me when the professor asks a question that is sooooooo obvious and there is a dead silence in the air for over a minute... I can't bear it... My class was fun too. I have a good, if somewhat strangely homogeneous group (there are so many of them, it has to be more than 30), they are engaged and nod understandingly as I give them in-depth and totally anal retentive (yes) explications of the finer grammatical points that they have no necessity of really knowing... I made everyone stop and take a few minutes to reflect on Martin Luther King, and why it was important to think about human rights, and the privileges that we have, and I taught the words for equality and injustice. True ,this is only their second quarter of language, but I think, what better way to get them interested in the language but through things that I am passionate about. I tied that into Bachelet and the results of the Chilean elections. Thanks to Sole, who last night gave me a crash course tutorial replete with thorough yet concise and precise analysis of her strengths, weaknesses, history and authority. I briefly discussed torture and the new trend of left-ward leaning governments being elected in Latin America. Then I got on with my lesson about indirect object pronouns and the verbs that love them.
I always leave feeling totally happy and at one with the world. Of course this feeling soon wears off, but today I ran into an ex-student at the café - a really interesting man, probably around 60, and African American man who had been in Vietnam. He is the kindest man, so effusive and warm, grateful for my teaching. He told me he loved my energy, and not in that hippie woo-woo fucking yoga consuming Californian way, it made me feel like things are still a little worthwhile, in fact as we talked, I found myself telling him about the fact that I am still so hopeful for the future (this truly shocked me that I would watch those words march out of my mouth in a vaporistic procession). But it is true, I am suddenly hopeful... Listening to I. talk about gender/racial/socio-economic equality as if it were the most obvious and logical choice... My student was talking about repatriating Africa... I wonder what it would feel like to feel that there was a place to go home to, I mean truly go home to, even if you had never been there. I know maybe I am supposed to feel that way about Israel. I know my mom would be happy if that were the case, but alas, it is not, nor will it, likely, ever be. As a child, during my Mafia obsessed stage, I imagined Sicilian landscapes as the home that I was meant to have and didn't. I still pine for Miramar in ways that are baffling and thrilling all at the same time. My childhood home I have no desire to ever see again. And D.F. - God we were watching clips from Mexican films at the turn of century... 1897... I have nostalgia for other times, but places? When will I ever find a place that tells me I am home? How will I know. I don't want to wander forever.
I drove the car again today. It fills me with terror and at the same time a secret glee. I am overcoming my demons... I am conquering my fears. I suppose the big test will be taking the highway somewhere by my own instigation. But that can wait. I didn't crash, and I only stalled once as I was pulling into the TJ's parking lot, actually right on the ramp in to drop of my very last videos - Head On, The Black Stallion (Ford Coppolla did this one, I had no idea) and Kinsey, which I watched with my mom until 1 in the morning (fun and interesting, but not mind shattering, though a dorky Liam Neeson with slightly sagging skin and ripped abs was a sight for sore eyes) on Friday after we were drinking wine with my neighbors and admitting that I was the one that made the brownies.
Ah yes, but I digress. So, my curtains are hung, my bed is rotated and my bedroom rearranged and my rug underneath vaccuumed for the first time in (cringe heartily) a year and a half (in my defense, up until two months ago I never vaccuumed once in this house, I wasn't the designated driver... of course all that has changed, and I re-hung paintings that had been taken down, and shifted seating arrangements, and framed my newly de-molded directors's chairs that catch the afternoon sunlight, with plants, real live ones that I haven't killed and have indeed remembered to water. I have two plants mounted on the wall in front of my kitchen window, and I am keeping the dishes done as soon as I finish a meal. I even finished my paper that was exactly one month late, yesterday and emailed it to my professor. Ugh. This is the first time that I have been late with an assignment... ever. Wait, no, I had to ask for a two day extension on a animation programming project my Senior year of college because I had had to fly to NH for the weekend for the obstetrician, and hadn't had the capabilities to work from home (this was pre-Mac conversion). So I am amazed that I could even deign to give myself a whole month... but then I just couldn't seem to work this break. Getting a whole 20 hours to myself may have had something to do with my boosted productivity, or maybe it was just the euphoria of meeting new people. I.S. gives the following advice: expand your social circle, expand, expand, expand! She suggests going out with everyone and anyone that suggests it, male, female or anywhere in between. That sounds like I might shoot myself in the foot when I should be locked in my castle reading, but I am having lunch tomorrow and hosting a dinner party Friday night. Again, like with the car, baby steps...
posted by ilana at 9:35 p.m.
2 Comments:
But steps never the less... decía Ghandi que no es tan importante la distancia recorrida como la dirección que lleva.
Ojalás te haya servido el crash course... jejejeje!
Pero por supuesto que me sirvió mujer, y como siempre, disfruté del debate con una persona (nótese que no dije mujer;) tan inteligente y elocuente como vuesa mercé ... je je.
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