Reminder #30

When you're trying to clean a lot of vines off of a fence and you plunge your hands and arms all the way into the mess, make sure that none of it is poison ivy or poison oak.

Back in Menard for a little while, about a month.

The other day, it hit me that I was back while I was sitting in the parking lot of the local convenience store. The store had a sign hanging up advertising its breakfast food. Of course, normally, advertising makes the food look really good. This store is honest at least though; the food pictured on the sign looks even more disgusting than the actual stuff. The funny thing, though, was the slogan.

"Putting the fast in breakfast."

I laughed. Like I said, this store is honest at least.

I think this could be found in a place like Menard.

End of the Semester

I was just eating a bowl of Apple Jacks, and I kept trying to think to myself what exactly it was that Apple Jacks tasted like.

After about ten minutes (two bowls), I finally decided that Apple Jacks taste vaguely of apples.

Creativity

I try not to write much about my students. I just don't think that's very good practice, at least as long as they are your students.

Honestly though, I don't think it can be avoided sometimes.

I've been grading a batch of student arguments, and they are supposed to be presenting the opposing viewpoint and then rebutting it in one section of the essay.

To paraphrase one student's position on capital punishment:

Some people make the claim that too many people end up getting executed for crimes we eventually learn they didn't commit. It's true that innocent people occassionally are executed; it's natural that we'll make mistakes sometimes. This objection to the death penalty, however, still is not valid. For every innocent person who's accidentally executed, there's probably a guilty person who isn't caught and is going free, so eventually the numbers work out close to equal. So it really all works out in the end.

I'm expecting this student to have a nice career as either a lawyer or a politician.

Reminder #29

Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, supercalifratulistic never, watch Borat again.

Recommendations

I haven't recommended any books or movies in a good while. I don't know how I've resisted the urge, but I'm not going to do so any more. I've seen some good movies recently, and I've read some good books. And, of course, I have taste, and so it seems my duty to let you know about them.

First, not many of those Wow! reads come along anymore. They used to quite a bit, but now, I guess, I've read so much that I'm not a surprised by as much that I read. I always find myself enjoying things the things I read, but still, that sublime feel is rare. I guess it should be.

Recently though, I did happen across such a read in The Slave by the Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer. Especially the first half of that novel just blew me away. It's a pretty basic sort of folk tale set in Poland sometime soon after 1648. The protagonist is Jacob, a Jewish man whose family had been killed in a massacre during a recent Cossack uprising. He had fled from the scene but was subsequently captured by some Pagan/Christians and enslaved in their village. Then, classically, he falls in love with his master's daughter and she with him, and they both struggle with all of those things dividing them: religions, cultures, social statuses, and personal histories. And, of course, God ends up deciding to play a bit of a hand in the story and make sure that nothing about it gets cliched or inauthentic. I'd recommend this to anyone.

So movies. I recently got on Netflix, so there's been a steady stream of really good ones this year:

1. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days - I'd actually never heard this story before. It's about Sophie Scholl, a young Catholic woman who was a member of the White Rose resistance group during World War II, who was executed by the Nazi government for her dissent. This was a really straightforward retelling of the story. In fact, as I watched it, I kept thinking that aspects of the film, especially the dialogue, seemed unmovielike. Eventually, I found out that most of the dialogue in the main scenes was taken word-for-word from the recently discovered transcripts of Scholl's interogation and trial. The film was all-the-more powerful for this authenticity.

2. Dear Frankie - This movie really sounded cheesy when I read about it, but it only sort of was. I remember reading somewhere, one time, that the best stories are the ones that almost reach sentimentality, that go right up to the border, but don't quite make it. This one is perfectly on that edge. The plot sounds silly. A mother, fleeing her abusive ex, moves from place-to-place with her young son who is deaf. Her son doesn't remember his father, and she tells him that her father is a sailor on the H.M.S. Acon (I'm pretty sure that's the wrong name, but it's something like that). She even goes so far as to forge letters for years from the imagined father, and the boy, of course, fantasizes about meeting his father. One day, fate steps in when the son sees in the paper that an actual ship named the H.M.S. Acon is coming into port. The mother has to take some fairly drastic steps to manage the situation. It's a far-fetched premise treated really realistically and really well. It doesn't end as you'd expect.

3. The Heart of the Game - I think the director of this documentary, Ward Serrill, has to be about the luckiest film-maker of all-time. He started out trying to make one-year-long documentary on a high school basketball coach's first year on the job. At the end of the year, he came back for more, and then, he came back again for a third year. This seems fairly normal. In that third year, though, a new player, Darnellia Russell, showed up, and once Serrill started filming the story of her high school basketball career, he had to keep going until it was done. Serrill, in Darnellia, had lucked onto one of the best stories I've ever seen. Honestly, its hard to believe that anybody could luck into filming a story that has the ending this movie has! It took seven years for Serril to reach that end. The film itself is a fairly straightforward documentary and a fairly classic story. It starts just following a basketball program, and the coach makes this fairly engaging. Once Russell shows up, though, the movie is all hers. She's a star basketball player who manages to overcome pretty extraordinary adversity to help the team become a success. It's pretty remarkable, and inspiring, seeing her journey.

Ok, a little while back, my friend KM tagged me in her “Gotta Get Goals” post. I think I’d been wanting to write some up for a while now, so that provided the necessary provocation, and here they are. Thanks KM.

1. Leave the country. Not for good, mind you. I’ve just never been outside of the U.S. And considering that so much of my imagined life (i.e. reading) has occurred elsewhere (pretty much everywhere else), it would be nice to see some of those places I’ve always imagined. England and Luxembourg (I don’t know why) top the list of places I want to see. It’s a long list though.

2. Translate the New Testament on my own. I’ve enjoyed taking Greek quite a bit, and oddly, I’m really good at it, considering the short amount of time I’ve been studying it and the past difficulty I once had picking up foreign languages. With a little help on vocabulary, I can translate things written by John already (he’s the easiest). It’ll be a little while until I can tackle Paul and everything else. This one, I know, will be a long-term goal. I imagine it’ll be awfully nice, though, to be able to sit down and read the whole NT in Greek and translate it and see how that makes me read and hear and see.

3. Do that doctorate. I’ve been debating this with myself for a long time, and I’ve decided that I’m slightly stuck. On the one hand, I was a little bit miserable in grad school before, and although I would be more prepared now than before to go on with my studies, I’m betting it still wouldn’t be a joyride. On the other hand, I’ve realized a couple of things. First, I sort of like reading a little, and that’s basically what I’m good at. I rather like teaching, too. So, I should probably figure a way to work within the literary culture in some way (that’s not in a library). Second, I’ve come to the realization that I’ll always be a little bit disappointed in myself if I never achieve a doctorate in something. This is silly, I know. But I guess I had invested quite a bit into that vision, more than I had realized, and plus, I hate quitting anything. So, according to my thinking, only one of these two miseries (getting a doctorate vs. not getting a doctorate) ever has a chance of ending. I’ll put this down as a long-term goal though.

4. Ok, the family thing. I’ve never really taken a position on this. I’ve never exactly not wanted to build my own family, but I’ve also always figured that I’d also be perfectly happy if I were to remain single. I’ve always just held that what happens will happen in this area of my life, and I’d not particularly prefer one way over the other. Although I’m still sure that I can be content with my life no matter which happens to me, I must admit that recently I’ve noticed myself leaning much more in the direction of wanting to build a family. Maybe, I’m just much closer to being prepared now than I was before.

5. Stay in Texas, or at least come back. I don’t really want to leave Texas for life. Increasingly, probably along with those family sort of urges I mentioned previously, I’ve been wanting to keep close to my original communities, my immediate family and the people of rural West/Central Texas. So, I want to make sure I manage to spend a real good portion of my life here.

6. Be more involved in church life. This has been a pretty big struggle for me in the last few years, for several bad reasons. First, I’m afraid I sometimes have a tendency to fall into the church critic mode. I go to a church for a while and am happy with it, but over time, negative impressions accrue, and I find myself wanting to try somewhere else out. I need to stop doing that. Second, I’ve become much more shy ever since I left TTU (and I was already pretty shy beforehand). I’m not entirely sure why I’ve changed in this way, but it definitely doesn’t help a whole lot when I’m trying to move deeper into church life. I keep seeming to spend all of my energy trying to push myself to church (which I succeed at doing nine times out of ten), and once I get there, I’m too exhausted to force myself to actually meet anyone. Most of the rest of my spiritual life has been pretty strong the last couple of years. Privately, my spiritual life has flourished during the last year. And teaching has been what I’ve considered a pretty valuable sort of ministry. Significant church involvement, though, has been sorely lacking, and life within the church, I’m pretty sure, is the most important aspect of Christian spiritual life to be good at.

7. Finish “The Great List.” I’ve always loved lists (which probably could tell you a good bit about my personality), and there’s one list that matters above all others to me: The Great List. I began it back when I was a freshman in high school. I just thought one day that it would be a good idea to start writing down the classic novels I wanted to read, and then I could mark each off once it was done. It started small, but very soon after I began it, the Modern Library publishers came out with their own list: The Top 100 Novels of the Century. I read it, and added almost all of them, and all of a sudden, my list had grown rapidly and wasn’t going to stop. And it didn’t just grow in length. Before long, I had rules for what sorts of books could get on it and what had to stay off, and I had a system of symbols by which I rated the books. Also, I documented on the list whether or not they were at the San Angelo and Menard libraries (they were the two closest). Plus, I determined that I would try to eventually try to own a copy of each book on the list (which, since they’re all classics, isn’t difficult to manage with used-book sales). Anyway, the list is currently 500 titles long, and I’ve read 186 of them. I own 243. I’ve been debating expanding the rules so that non-fiction texts could be included. Even if I add those, I want to have all of them read and owned before I’m gone. I have some catching up to do.

8. Be as financially just as possible. This is difficult, largely because it’s hard to know what all being financially just entails. So part of this goal is that I spend significant time during my life doing the necessary research on how responsibly to utilize whatever resources I’m given. Generally, I know that I want to live simply and avoid wastefulness, not taking up more than my share of the pie. I just want the car that’ll get me there and a house big enough to live in, you know. I want to buy locally, be environmentally responsible, avoid usury, and contribute significantly to charities and to the church.

9. Play the piano more. I’m fortunate to own a piano, inherited from my grandmother. I don’t play it very often, though, largely because it hasn’t been tuned since 1972, and I would probably not be very popular with my neighbors for very long if I did. I only seem to play it when I’m busy (it helps me focus) or depressed (I cheers me up). I guess it’s a good thing that I haven’t been depressed or busy enough to be driven to playing it, but the bad thing itself is that I haven’t been playing it. I need to pick my habit of playing back up. I don’t need to lose what few skills I got.

10. One Year: Do Something Crazy. I finished my bachelor’s degree in three years, and when I did, I promised myself I’d use that year I gained at some point in my life to do something totally crazy. There would be only two stipulations. The first would be that I wouldn’t just be devoting the year to myself; it’s required that I help people in some way. Second, I can’t make any money doing it. There are a variety of things I’ve considered. A couple of years ago, I thought really seriously about joining the Peace Corps. I didn’t consider myself mature enough, though, at the time, and so I didn’t. I was right about that then, but the future’s still open. I’ve also considered mission work of various sorts, both internationally and domestically. There’s another opportunity I may try to take in a year or two to go and volunteer to teach at a Christian university in Lithuania (I would have considered it this year if I hadn’t been too late to get it funded). And, of course, there are a whole host of ways I could put my (conveniently, already non-existent) career on hold, and work within some human rights sort of organization like IJM. At some point, I’m going to have to do this.

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Ok, several of the people who occasionally visit this blog have already been tagged by KM, so I’ll not tag those of you again. You’re already it. I’d also like to see, though, the goals of Kalyn, BJ, Will, Emerald, Kayla, Brittany, Emily, and Allie if you happen by.