Tuesday, January 29, 2002
Ah, one of my favorite movies ever. I actually got to see it on the big screen a couple months back. Very silly, very cool. I highly recommend it.
Argh. I have always been primarily a night-owl by nature. At the peek of my late night activities during summers in which I had little scheduled, I would stay up till 4, 5 or 6 AM. I loved watching the sky change, the sun come up, and then sleeping through the hot parts of the day. I'd wake up in the afternoon, and stay out late once more. Unfortunatley, those days are past. Teaching has me at 6 or 7 AM during the week, and now my circadian rhythms have been reset to the point that even on weekends, I find myself awake by 8, and unable to reurn to sleep. I suppose this is how the "normal" world works...early to be, early to rise and all that. I just miss the late night time.
Thursday, January 24, 2002
With January 15th being his birthday, and the 21st being Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, there has naturally been a bit of focus on Dr. King in the schools these past few weeks.
Dr. MLK jr. stuff is interesting to present to small children. For 1st graders, they (it can be hoped) don't have a grasp on the inequality, hatred, and violence of the Civil Rights era. You want to explain to them who Dr. King was, why his dream was important and why he should be remembered. At the same time, he was assassinated, and you can't ignore that.
Today the teacher I was working with showed a mini-documentary to her kids. Among the questions and comments:
"Is he real?" "Is that Real Life?" "Who killed him?" "Where was he killed?"
The teacher kept trying to keep them focused on his life, rather than his death, but being first graders, they wanted the gory detiails. I imagine that at their age, they understand the "Love one another, be fair, share, treat others with respect..." concepts. Death and violence, on the other hand, is novel, and new, and mysterious, and something from TV and movies...not Real.
For the last 20 minutes of the class and all the way to the bus, the girl I was working with plied me with questions. Who killed him? Why was he killed? What made the man want to kill Dr. King? Is God dead? (oh dear...) Will God die?
Any one that says that kids are simple is fooling themselves.
(Yes, I realize most, if not all of these authors deals in science fiction, fantasy, or magic realism. So shoot me. I get enough Real Life in real life.)
Of course, if I were only allowed to read one author again ever, for as long as I live, I'd have to go with Shakespeare. Somehow, it just didn't seem fair to everyone else to try to put him on the list.
I was laid off two days after 9-11. It really shook up my world, before it had even stopped shaking from the eleventh. I felt sick and depressed and completely unsure of my next step. And yet...
For awhile at my job, I had been growing bored and discontent. I was in a job that was peripheral to creativity and that allowed my after hours access to equipment that I needed but the actual work was grunt work. I was a mook, a button pushing monkey with little actual creative input. I was in a major rut. However, the job was tough to leave. The pay was decent, I had benefits, the hours were pretty ideal, and the work environment was pleasant. Many of my friends worked for the same company.
Now I am out of the rut and finding a new direction. I started out last fall by taking classes to improve my knowledge of computer graphics. Tonight I returned from a new class. I have always wanted to know how to mix drinks well, so I have started taking a bartending class. This will also enable me to obtain my bartending liscence for a job over summer vacation. (Substitute teacher and bartender--great combo, hey? Teach them when they are young and then help them forget when the get old enough.)
On the teaching front, I am also in the process of becoming a volunteer sexuality educator for Planned Parenthood. I have always had vague notions of doing this, but the need suddenly seemed urgent with the advent of the Bush administration. I have also been wanting to make use of my passport, so I have been looking into ways to do that.
All of this mental activity is great, but all work, no play right? Two things I have always talked about: archery and Tai Chi. I am finally going to do something about that.
Add learning HTML to all that, and I really need to keep my daily planner close at hand. Maybe I will find that I am biting off more than I can chew. I am out of my rut, and feeling pretty good. Maybe getting laid off was good thing. I always tell people that I am an optimistic pessimist. That means that I see the glass as half empty, but I am expecting free refills.
Now if only I could do something about that constantly broke thing...
People seem to think that women in the armed forces and combat is a brand new phenomenon. If you watch movies, you would think that Demi Moore lead the charge and that the Gulf War was the first time there were ever women in combat. If you got beyond the superficial high school history books, you might say, "Well sure, there were theWACs, the WASPs, and the WAVES during WWII, but they were only auxilliary."
What people don't seem to realize that women have been in combat many times throughout history, and not just in the dusty, Joan-of-Arc past. During WWIIRussian women made very important contributions to the fighting effort. Lilya Litvyak has become one of my personal heroes. Yet just a few years ago, I was one of the ignorant many who had no idea that this ever happened. I had never heard of the Night Witches. I knew without a doubt that World War II was fought by men and won by men. Women stayed home and kept the country running. We had Rosie the Riveter but no fighting aces, no war heroes.
It wasn't until my fourth year of college that Anne Noggle came to my school and talked about her book A Dance With Death that I had any clue. Wow!
In high school there were two years of history. One year we were given American History and one year we were given World History. When you try to pack even 200 years into two semesters, the going is tough. Trying to cover the entire history of the entire world into two semesters you have an impossible task. And, of course, what we were taught was pretty much the smae thing we had been taught every year since the first grade. I am really glad that the way history is taught in school is being examined, despite the grumbling and shrieking of conservative pundits.
I was also really happy in the spring of 2001 to watch the movie Enemy at the Gates. Set during the seige of Stalingrad, it was the first WWII movie I have ever seen featuring women fighting along side men. Now if only they could come out with a Lilya Litvyak bio-pic.
Here it is, Sunday afternoon and I am trying to decide if I should go see Amelie one more time. I really love that movie. I was impressed by both the story itself and the lovely visuals. The palette of vivid reds, yellows and greens completely captured my eyes. I guess Amelie also reminds me a little bit of myself...the quiet, shy kid with the big imagination. Fortunately for me, I wasn't quite so bereft of playmates as a child, and am not quite as painfully shy (anymore).
Saturday, January 12, 2002
It is interesting how wrapped up we can get in the lives of fictional characters. While we may not get psychotic about it like the sad (and fictional) woman in Steven King's Misery, we do still find ourselves invested in their doings and well-being. I am willing th admit to crying many a time over the death's or losses of characters in books, movies, and even TV shows. I was weepy and angry for hours after Doyle died.
So tonight as I finished reading Charles de Lint's newest novel, The Onion Girl I had to take a bit of time to pause and consider how I felt about it. It was a good book, and I was glad to have read it. At the same time, I was upset about what happened to Jilly. I love Jilly! I want Jilly to be just as she always was. I can't pout about it, though. I know that she is also one of Mr. de Lint's favorite characters. He could have chosen to leave her alone, but so many things grew out of what happened....Authors are God to their characters. They may love their characters, but if nothing bad ever happens to them, there isn't much of a story. I guess it can be something to ponder when I get into a "Why does God let bad things happen to good people?" train of thought.
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
I have been wondering, ever since 9/11, how many people besides me have been a little bit weirded out by the Tower trump card in the Tarot deck? I have never been one to interpret the card in a negative light, but since the eleventh it has been on my mind...the visual image, its traditional names, and the standard interpretations. Apt, yet uncomfortable.
This message has been brought to you by the letters kayjay and the number
1/9/2002 09:07:57 PMlink
I discovered today that the fraternity that bought my childhood home (the original Irving Place) had a virtual tour of the house on their website. I have not set foot in the house since June 15, 1991--the night we finally moved out, but my sister has. She told me of the changes that had been made beyond the obvious changes that can be seen from the outside.
For the most part, I don't want to see it. While I can accept that it is a part of my life that is long gone and will never come back, it is nice to leave the memories intact. There is, however, a tiny part of me that does want to see, no matter how much it has changed. It was through this curiosity that I ventured into the site. Fate, it seems, wants me to leave well enough alone. Three times I tried to take the tour and each time, Netscape would crash as I got to the front door. One the site, the message "Are you ready to go up these steps?" had been posted. I guess for the moment I am not.
This message has been brought to you by the letters kayjay and the number
1/9/2002 08:43:57 PMlink
This message has been brought to you by the letters kayjay and the number
1/9/2002 08:13:43 PMlink
Lately, many of my friends and I have found ourselves waxing nostalgic. It seems a little odd for people in their 20's and early 30's to already be hung up on "the good old days" but we are. I think in our hearts, many of us want to be somewhere between 5-12. I'd settle for 6, myself. When I walk into a class of kindergartners to teach, I find myself a bit resentful that I have to be the authority figure when what I really want to do is join them on the rug, drink Kool-aid and watch Sesame Street.
I think as recent additions to the adult world, we are finding that the perks of adulthood that we had so long dreamt of are often overshadowed by the responsibilities of adulthood that we'd never thought about. Work, bills, rent, taxes, politics...And at this time of terrorism, war, dirty politics, and recession, who doesn't want to curl up on their cot for naptime?
This message has been brought to you by the letters kayjay and the number
1/9/2002 01:15:40 PMlink
Tuesday, January 08, 2002
Another day, another dollar. Maybe someday I will get used to substitute teaching, but I don't know if I will ever adjust to waking up before the light. Somehow, that always seems deeply wrong.
This message has been brought to you by the letters kayjay and the number
1/8/2002 07:14:13 AMlink
This is the stuff that hangs out in the basement.
Copyright for all images and text belongs to Katherine Olson, except whether otherwise noted.
(If I've cited something of yours and somehow missed the credit and/or link, let me know and I'll fix it.)
Irving Place
