Jobber

I’m a bit more than a month into my new job. That’s four months of work here in Virginia, after about three months of unemployment. A lot of the time the work stresses me out, but I’m happy to have it. It was tough to be jobless.

Obviously it wasn’t hard work being unemployed. And I tried to make the most of my time, reading and writing and telling myself to appreciate it because soon I’d have a job again and wish I had more leisure. Which I do.

The biggest stressor was the feeling of limbo. With so many things that I want to do, I couldn’t stand to, well, sit around all day. I ended up researching and considering all the possible things I want to do, and then didn’t do any of them.

I remember a guy at a party telling me that I was lucky to not have a job. That he wished he didn’t. I told him to quit. He laughed, and I thought of how we both envied each other’s situations.

Since I had so much time, I reread “Days of War, Nights of Love.” Their outlook romanticizes unemployment. Job free, home free, deodorant free. But I couldn’t feel the romance. I wanted to get back to work.

Maybe I needed something to keep me from over-thinking. Or maybe it was the sense of identity, of fitting in – contributing – that became even more desirable since I’d moved to a new place. In any case, I'm ready for a vacation.

Personal Statement, First Draft

I tried to quit school for a year. I didn’t enter the classroom this August, and, for the first time in twenty years, summer’s end didn’t mark the beginning of a new academic year for me. I planned to work outside the realm of education for a bit. See what I may have missed. But I couldn’t cut myself off entirely. By October I started to tutor for an after-school program at a local elementary school. Plus, the majority of my friends in town were full-time graduate students. Then my new teacher’s license came in the mail, and got me thinking of the students I’ve had in the past few years, of the students I could have had this year.

From 2006 through 2009 I taught high school English in New Hampshire, Vermont, and France, respectively. I loved it. I found, though, that I wasn’t ready to end my own education. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t learning while teaching – quite the contrary. However, I wanted to continue my formal education at the graduate level. I wanted to return to the classroom as a student.

My last year three semesters at college preluded those past three years: I worked in seminar-level literature courses at Keene State, studied at the University of Rennes II in France, and completed my internship as a student teacher at Souhegan High School. It was also at that time that I decided on my eventual goal of earning a PhD and teaching at the university level. Unfortunately, I couldn’t decide what material I wanted to dedicate so much time and energy to.

So far in my academic pursuits, I have chosen breadth over depth. I love to look at seemingly disparate subjects and search for fruitful connections, or, specifically as a pedagogical tool, to use knowledge of one subject to enrich the understanding of another subject. For example, I can use a student’s knowledge of collegiate wrestling to better explain the writing process. Or, in my own work, I can call on my understanding of quantum physics to gain a new perspective on a post-modernist text. Even though I plan to maintain my generalist tendencies, I understand that graduate school is a world of specialists. And until recently, I struggled to narrow my scope.

At first it seemed odd that living in France would invigorate my interest in American literature and culture. Yet the more I thought about it, the easier it became to see how the experience of a foreigner would cause one to deal intimately with one’s national identity. My nationality was my defining characteristic. In order to reflect on my interactions in France, on how others perceived me, I had to explore how American culture has shaped me. Additionally, I had to think about how others view American culture – generally – and how the French view America and Americans – specifically.

What started as a pursuit to better understand my identity as a foreigner became a realization of what I wish to focus on in graduate school. Within my English coursework as an undergraduate, the 20th Century American Literature class and the Thoreau seminar stood out. While I credit the professors for making the content especially engaging, I also know that when left alone with the texts I found myself captivated. These courses, combined with my non-academic exploration of how language and national culture shaped me, led me to my desired field of focus. Specifically, I am interested in how 20th and 21st Century American literature reflects and represents the impact of modern science on individuals and culture. Furthermore, within this context, I would like to explore the role of science and language in constructing and defining one’s reality and identity. I believe that further study into the connection of philosophy of science with semiotics, in the context of 20th & 21st C. American literature, offers awesome insights and I’m excited to pursue them.

How specific program would be good for me (professors to work with).

My undergraduate and professional teaching experience greatly influenced my graduate and post-graduate school aspirations. However, I also believe that this year, this brief intermission in my educational career, has been instrumental in realizing how much passion I have for teaching and learning. Just as my sejour in France brought my excitement for American literature and culture to the forefront, this period outside the classroom has reinforced my desire for a career in education.

First Draft Poem

Clip

First the feelings swoop,
free in places.

Then separation pens them
to one time, location,
person that you have slowly
shed until,

Eventually, the feelings bind
into memories.

Deliverance

A big guy came to the porch, its single bulb the only source of light in the driveway/parking lot. He yelled, "Whatchuh doin' here" over the fence and board pen full of an uncertain number of barking dogs. I walked away from my car, past the pen, towards him. Another guy, this one even bigger, also with a buzzed head, came to the porch.

"I'm droppin' off my car for Mike to work on."

"He know 'bout it?"

"Yeah."

I guessed so. Hoped. I hadn't actually talked with Mike, nevermind met him. A coworker said his friend, Mike, would change my timing belt at a good price. The coworker also told me about the dogs, and that he'd let a roommate know I'll come by that night. He explained that this last detail was important because the roommates have an arsenal as big as the police department's, and may not like an unexpected visit.

I thanked the roommate for letting me park my car, then thanked my Texan friend - by giving her fried pickles - for following me to the place in her Jeep and driving me home. The next day at work, when I thanked the coworker for giving the well-armed roommate the heads up, he said he was glad I found a ride back, that he felt bad not going with me because I'd probably thing I "was getting into some 'Deliverance' shit."

(Written on October 7th. Posted November 23rd.)

Relatives

Lately I've been talking a lot with one of my co-workers when the place isn't too busy. Today, as we were discussing politics and music, I realized that I was unintentionally comparing him to some of my friends. It wasn't a comparison to decide if he is as good as them, but a search for who he reminds me of. As though pinning down someone to connect him to would give me a better grasp of who he is.

I think everyone does this sort of thing, to try to better understand or feel comfortable with something new by connecting to to something familiar. Like how people always say, "you look just like (or remind me so much of) so-and-so." Maybe it's a basic urge to link things and seek patterns. In any case, I wonder if it's possible to see anything as it is by itself, to take that raw, new thing and process it alone.

(Written on September 3rd. Posted on November 17th.)

He Who Laughs Last

I probably understood two thirds of what people said to me when i was in France, especially in the first few months. Normally that, plus context, was enough to get the general message. Though often I wouldn't be exactly sure what someone was saying until the end of it, so I'd let things to that I didn't understand. I figured it was better to let a couple of things slide in a conversation than to interrupt it each time I didn't know a word or phrase. Because of this, there'd be times when someone would finish talking and I'd have no idea what they said. At that point I'd decide whether to have them repeat themselves, based on how important it seemed, and usually I'd just let it go.

Unfortunately, this habit of not asking for clarification when I didn't hear or understand something - or worse: going on as though I know what the person said - has transposed to my US mind. But I'm working on it.

(I wrote this on August 31st. Not sure why I hadn't posted it yet, or anything for that matter.)

Public Education and Health Care

I’ve got a suggestion for the health care debate. Someone may have already brought it up, but I haven’t heard it put the way I thought of it. That is, to treat health care the same way as education.

This would make health care an obligation for all citizens. It would also make each community, district, and state responsible for organizing and providing health care to its citizens. Finally, while all taxpayers would financially support this system, they would be free to use alternative, private schools.

I don’t think public schools are perfect. I’ve seen many of the problems, both as a student and educator. But I do believe its model provides a core system that effectively benefits citizens and society alike, while constantly adapting and seeking to best serve them. Plus, if we pay doctors as much as teachers then it’ll be affordable. Though I guess we couldn’t give two months of summer vacation to doctors too.

Comment Tester Ton Ami (Pt. 2)

He put his hand on the cutting board right when I brought down the knife. I tried to pull it back, but couldn’t. It’s a weird feeling to commit your body and mind to a sudden motion, and try to stop it in the middle of the act. First I saw the blood spray out, hitting the wall near us. Then I stared at his hand. He, much smarter than me, yelled to get something to cover the wound. I grabbed a rag, but he said, again with a clear mind, that it was filthy. We ran to the sink and put a clean towel over the gash, both of us applying as much pressure to it as we could.

In Defense

The first section of the French history textbook, picking up after WWII, focuses on globalization. Though it’s not overt in its anti-globalization stance, subtle is often more effective. I don’t want to defend globalization, but two things bother me as I read.

First, I’m tired of the suggestion that consuming US products and culture is forced. If people don’t buy it, if there’s no demand, then corporations can’t profit. That’s not to say corporations and media aren’t aggressive, but that consumers aren’t helpless victims.

Second, I don’t think the French, historically, have a right to claim moral high ground on the issue. Why do citizens of some African countries speak French? Napoleon undertook massive military and cultural invasions, and, unlike the decision to buy a coke or watch a Hollywood movie, his were occupations by force.

Comment Tester Ton Ami (Pt. 1)

He squatted in front of the mini fridge to stock portioned lobster roll and cole slaw. Or was it tuna salad? I still wondered about the newly delivered knives, which came with the warning, “careful, you know, these things are real sharp.” We had tested the big knife on various things, and nothing could slow it. I looked at the three-inch stack of square, American cheese slices. That’d take some force to cut through. So I placed it on the white, textured cutting board mounted on top of the mini fridge, and raised the knife just below shoulder height. I like to think I remembered to then say “don’t move” to him, that I’d made him aware of my plan – reckless as it was – in some way. But I’m not sure. I do know that I chopped as hard as I could, cause the block of cheese didn’t figure to split easily.

Rug Out the Window

I just found out that the website for The Paris Review has their full interviews for free via pdf. Today I read one with Charles Olson; I didn’t know anything about the guy so I figured it’d be a good place to start. Turns out that in addition to being a notable American poet of the 50s and 60s, he’s also crazy. The interview starts with:

Charles Olson: Get a free chair and sit down. Don’t worry about anything. Especially this. We’re living beings and forming a society; we’re creating a total, social future. Don’t worry about it. The kitchen’s reasonably orderly. I crawled out of bed as sick as I was and threw a rug out the window.

Interviewer: Now the first question I wanted to ask you. What fills your day?

Olson: Nothing. But nothing, literally, except my friends.

Interviewer: These are very straight questions.

Olson: Ah, that’s what interviews are made of.


It gets wilder, and often less coherent, in the rest of the interview. Next I’m gonna read ones with Ralph Ellison and William Faulkner – they’re usually straightforward fellas.

History Books

I finished reading a 10th grade French history textbook, kindly given to me by a social studies teacher at the high school in Landivisiau. We had talked about what’s covered in a US public school’s history course versus one in France – specifically the Cold War – and so he let me have a copy of the 10th and 12th graders’ books.

The 10th grade textbook begins with Ancient Greece and ends with the industrial revolution. Aside form a greater focus on Europe and France, especially France’s “inspiring” other countries to become democratic, I didn’t notice any glaring differences. The French textbook didn’t seem to talk much about the Louisiana Purchase, though I guess it wasn’t a good deal for them and they had a lot going on at home and elsewhere. I think the notable differences will come from the 12th grader textbook, from the end of WWII to today.

Green Mansions

Netflix offers instant viewing for the PBS series: e2 design, about sustainable living and green design. The show’s website also streams episodes, but not all of the first season. So far I’ve watched up to episode four (about building a house out of Big Dig scraps) of season one, and gotten pumped up each time. While I’ve had the itch before, this series really makes me wanna get involved with this sort of thing. Not just as a hobby, though, but in a “go back to school and become a professional” kind of way.

Maybe it just seems so attractive because Brad Pitt narrates the episodes, but I don’t think it’s a feasible option for me. Just yesterday I came up with some American Studies graduate work that I could really get into. I plan to go to graduate school and eventually return to teaching, either at the high school or college level. I guess I just need to remember that I can’t do everything, especially not at once. And that getting excited about something doesn’t mean I should consider it as a career option – even if Brad Pitt wants me to.

Trifocals

I’ve come up with three possible focuses for a graduate program in American Studies:

1. Explore the different forms of narrative in American literature – as well as media and vernacular – and the social and psychological implications of using those forms.

2. Study the major philosophies in American culture, and how literature has influenced and represented them.

3. Look at heroes in American culture, specifically through literature, and the implications thereof.

These are pretty general, though I think it’s good to start that way. Plus, I don’t foresee difficulty in narrowing them down. For starters, I’m mostly interested in 20th Century stuff. But now I need to figure out which focus offers the most fertile fields, instead of worn territory, and who can help me till them.

Japes

It’s my friends’ fault that I’m not funny. They make good jokes and get me going on a certain type of humor, but once left to my own devices I drop the ball. I always think I can imitate their style and it always falls flat. At least I can beat most of them at basketball.

Weight On My Shoulders

There’s a free gym in our housing complex, and since I’ve often wondered what consistent weight lifting is like I decided to give it a try. This is my seventh week of training – going three times a week for about 45 minutes each session, when I do two sets of eleven dumbbell exercises. And I don’t like it.

It’s boring. It’s hard in an unsatisfying way. The radio is usually on a crappy 70s station that drains my spirit. But I want some form of exercise, and a free gym will have to do until I can afford to take MMA classes or go rock climbing or do anything else awesome. Working out like this has also given me more respect for athletes who log hours and hours at the gym. Then again, they get a paycheck to play games.

Loops

Gotta keep reminding myself, cause all those lovely realizations bleed out eventually.

Like swinging a golf club: doing it right once doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way.

Or how I periodically must clip my nails.

We’re not Sisyphus or Prometheus, with sharp moments when the liver’s torn or the boulder tumbles.

There’s no culmination, no shoulders of day to day giants; we just sometimes forget to breathe.

"A Forest of Symbols"

There’s a man with hands tied to a whipping post. The other man whips him, sleeves rolled up. “Ideology” labels the whipper, “language” the whip, and “you” the whipped. Underneath the image, Nadia wrote (among other things):

“I think part of this pathological need to systematize everything comes from living in cities, incidentally. Every single thing around us here has been made by human beings, and has specific human meaning attached to it – so when you look around, instead of seeing the actual objects that are around you, you see a forest of symbols.”

I like this. I’m glad it got me thinking about my tendency to systematize and analyze everything, and the implication thereof. But isn’t that the means by which we think, even on the most basic level?

Animal Collective

I have a lot more patience for people than for pets. Maybe it’s cause I believe our higher mental complexity deserves greater slack, but when I think that through it seems backwards. Shouldn’t higher-level thinking beget greater responsibility, accountability? Pets don’t make conscientious decisions, so why would I act as though they have agency or personality? They don’t do anything on purpose. Or they do everything on purpose, because there’s no weighing out decisions abstractly or in the long-term. They seem to deserve more of my patience than people do, yet maybe it’s because they bring out the animalistic response in me - all chasing, yelling, grabbing, pouncing, and throwing.

Man, I gotta get a job.

Bread and Water

Grocery 1 (2 @ 0.99) : 1.98

Kennebunkport Wheat 6floz for 5.99 : 5.99

Salsa Chunky TJ’s : 2.29

Eggs Brown Extra Large Cage Fr : 2.79
TJ’s Honey Nut O’s Cereal : 2.49
B-Tortilla Handmade! Whole Whe : 2.49
Meatless Bkfst Patties : 3.39
Tamales Grn Chile&Cheese : 1.99
TJ’s Spring Salad Mix : 1.99
Organic Rnd Yellow Tort. Chips : 2.59
Beans Refried Black Beans FF V : 1.29
Organic Black Beans : 1.09
Tomatoes Whole No Salt w/Basil : 1.49
TJ’s Feta : 2.99
Spinach & Chive Linguine Pasta : 1.99
Vege Gyoza : 3.49
Fries Sweet Potato : 2.29
Organic Onions : 2.29
Pasta Whole Wheat Rotelle-Orga : 1.29
R-Strawberries Clamshell : 4.79
5 Layer Dip Small/11.5 oz : 3.99
Agave Organic Sweetner : 2.99
Yogurt Greek Style Plain : 2.49
Whipped Cream Cheese : 1.49
Milk Lowfat 1% Half Gal TJ’s : 1.69
TJ’s Organic Half & Half : 1.49
Pasta Spaghetti : 0.99
La Ferme Julien Rouge : 5.99
Villa Cerrina Montepulciano : 4.99
Eggplant Zucchini Marinated IT : 3.99
Organic Avocados : 4.39
A-Lemons Organic 1# : 2.49
Sliced Multigrain Sourdough : 2.79
Grocery 1 (5 @ 0.29) : 1.45
The Works Bagels : 2.29
TJ Xtra Shrp Wisconsin Cheddar : 3.37

Subtotal : $97.87
State Tax 1 : $2.02
State Tax 2 : $0.85
TOTAL : $100.74
VISA : $100.74

Items 46 - G, Amanda
07-09-2009 05:12PM

Comment Casser une Toilette (Pt. 2)

I managed to open the bathroom door while pinching the broken floater with the other hand. It seemed ludicrously unreal: I was in a foreign country, at a party in the apartment of a girl I’d recently met, with a couple of other friends, at four in the morning on Halloween night, and water had sprayed all over her bathroom cause I’d just broken the toilet and I didn’t know how to fix it.

“Uhh, il y a une problème.” “J’ai…j’ai fait quelque chose.”

The girl whose apartment we were in, whose toilet I broke, came into the bathroom. I explained what I’d done, the problem. She took over the floater pinching duty while I apologized profusely. Maybe she didn’t believe me, or just wanted to see for herself, or maybe my French was so crappy that she didn’t understand a damn thing I said, but she let go of the floater.

All four of the square bathroom’s walls got reblasted. Water rolled down the mirror above the sink. She kind of stood there for a second – we both did – taking it all in as the toilet drenched her. By the time the water began beading at the tips of her hair, she got her wits back and reached for the valve next to the toilet to cut off the water supply. That solved the pinching problem.

Name That Novel

Special Topics In Calamity Physics uses the name of a great literary work for each chapter’s title. The chapter’s themes and story development, I’m told, then connect to the referenced text. On the prose level, Marisha Pessl makes constant allusions and citations, some of which I get and many of which I probably don’t even notice. I like the book so far, and I feel satisfied when I understand a reference. Yet I want to know what I’m missing.

I’ll take the GRE General Test in October. But to prepare for standardized testing, and out of curiosity, I’m trying the practice exam for the GRE Subject: English test. Between this and Special Topics In Calamity Physics, the world of literature looks daunting. Still, I wonder how much the great writers read. Or great thinkers. Not that I’ll be either of those, but how important is it to cover the canon?

Fight or Flight

The adrenaline exhausted me the first time I sparred. Half my energy went to held breath and tense muscles. I had to relax, stay loose, but I also needed to stop turning away when overwhelmed with punches. Sparring showed me my instinct: when I didn’t have time to think, I chose flight over fight.

I didn’t like my instinct, so I trained. The turning away kept up for a couple of weeks, rearing (or hiding) its ugly head when a sparring partner put on a lot of pressure. Eventually, though, I learned to stay in there. Get hit. Block. Effectively cover up, and try to read what was coming. I never got any good at it, but at least I was fighting.

Last Summer's Writing

How many times have I told you
to dance along the bridge
like the water underneath:
if the rock’s too big, go around
or go over the top and churn

How many times have I told you
that I can’t fully express myself -
like a whistling kettle whose
shrill cry belies the boiling
belly and churning steam

How many times have I told you
to look up at the sky
like a monk who
meditates on death and compassion
and circles that you can see only half of.

Ragamuffin

Today I filled out two applications to work as a firefighter – one for the City of Williamsburg, and the other for James City County (which is basically just Williamsburg, but because of Colonial Williamsburg the city limits don’t include the entirety of “Williamsburg”). I’ll be happy to work as a firefighter, though my lack of prior experience and training makes it an unlikely prospect.

I’ve also applied for...

Executive Assistant: Alumni Association at William & Mary
Office Manager: Center for Gifted Education at William & Mary
Anything: Trader Joe’s
Anything: Buon Amici (good Italian restaurant)
High School English Teacher: Williamsburg Public Schools
Middle School English Teacher: Williamsburg Public Schools
Anything: Barnes & Noble
Anything: Williamsburg Post Office (not hiring)

So far, no good. And I even got a haircut to look more professional. I have, however, been able to fill up the days with applications, resumes, cover letters, references, letters of recommendation, transcripts, etc.

Comment Casser une Toilette (Pt. 1)

The lid for the toilet’s tank was off cause the regular flush handle broke; you had to pull the flapper valve when you’d finished. I knew this. But, mind fogged by Halloween fun, I didn’t see which part was the flapper valve. Three choices: something on the left, something in the center, and something to the right. I didn’t take much time to look.

The plastic cover tore when I pulled on the floater. Water blasted through the small hole I’d created. With all that pressure in so little space, it soaked the ceiling, the walls, my shoulders and hair. I pinched the hole closed. The water couldn’t come out, but neither could I. Stuck in the bathroom at a party in a foreign country at four in the morning. I heard “Paint It Black” through the bathroom door.

Fight Fire with No. 2 Pencils

I just paid $150 to the Educational Testing Service (ETS) for the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). When I was a high school junior, I gave them money for the SAT; in college it was the PRAXIS, so I could get my teaching license. This is a huge profit industry. Yet colleges say they give less and less importance to SAT and ACT scores. And most educators and SAT-prep course instruction will say that standardized test taking skills are just as important as the content knowledge.

The recent Supreme Court ruling on the case of the New Haven firefighters has gotten press mostly because of race issues and Judge Sotomayor. But it also raises questions on the use of standardized tests to evaluate current and potential employees. As an educator, it reminds me of the debate and frustration over standardized testing to not only evaluate a student’s knowledge, but also the school’s performance (see: No Child Left Behind). Both cases – the firefighters’ and students’ exams – involve money: the results determine the employees’ salaries and the school’s federal funding. That puts a lot of faith in standardized testing as an accurate measure of skill level and knowledge.

Should these exams carry so much weight? If not, what alternatives does one have when trying to give a fair evaluation that gets universal recognition? Surely licensing boards and college admissions need a standard measure to judge candidates by. And it’s not just in the USA. In France, all high school seniors spend their final days of school taking the BAC, the scores of which then determine what universities and programs the student can enter. The main difference between the SAT and BAC, however, is that the BAC isn’t a multiple choice, scantron test. No bubble filling. All work must be shown, all responses written out. So is it the design of the exam that needs attention, or simply the idea of standardized exams?

Boards and Ballpoints

Aymeric and I made this video in the spring of 2006, when I first lived in France. My intent was to create a souvenir, not show how well I can fall. The filming also became a way for me to hang out with friends at a time when my French didn’t cut it. All the others rollerbladed, but, after a couple of tries, I decided to stick with skateboarding. If I’m gonna fall, I’ll do it on something familiar.

After I got back from France in 2006, I pretty much stopped skating. Now my souvenirs come in writing. I’m an old man, better at falling flat on the page than my face. But writing doesn’t have that same satisfaction – of landing a trick after failing again and again, or weaving with a group of friends through crowds and streets in the city.

Boards and Blades

A grind on rollerblades feels smooth – plastic on a waxed curb or a rail. When I first tried one I fell on my ass. I leaned into the grind, pushed my feet forward a bit, and my legs shot out from under me. Up until then, I’d always done grinds on a skateboard. Metal on metal or a curb. The trucks dig in and grind. Because I’d always had to push the board along, I wasn’t ready for the smoothness of rollerblades.

Even though there’s variety in both, that’s the biggest different between styles: skateboarding is force while rollerblading is finesse. Skateboards pop and snap; you flick the board and catch it. It takes serious coordination, much harder for beginners than rollerblading, and most pros make it look fluid and easy. Usually it’s a rodeo on concrete. Rollerblades glide and cut; you roll through lines and transition between grinds. It also requires serious coordination, but more in a gymnastic sense. The best pros get acknowledged as much for their style and pose as the acrobatic and/or ballsy trick they’re pulling off.

Someone rollerblading for two years will impress the average onlooker more than the skateboarder of two years. Especially at a skatepark. When I’d skateboard with friends, we’d land about 50% or fewer of our tricks. Many afternoons of my teenage years were devoted to a single trick. Just to land it once, with the hope that eventually I’d have it down. But in rollerblading, about 75% or more tricks are “landed.” It’s just a question of whether the style was right, the grind was long enough, etc.

A Blurred Beacon

We sat on the beach – Obama and me. Middle Ages looking castle walls loomed behind us. The beach shrunk as the tide came in, and our little fire flickered brighter under the creeping clouds. We didn’t say much.

The rain started, so we looked for shelter. We left the fire dying and confined within its rusty metal container. The green film on the rampart walls (or was it a castle) stood out as we got closer, and showed how high the sea climbed the charcoal-colored bricks.

I got separated from Obama after we passed through one of the walls. We had some sense of eerie urgency, probably intensified by the tide and clouds. But I don’t know what we needed to do. It was cool to hang out with Obama though.

New Blood

Season two of True Blood started. I watched this week’s episode, the second of the season, earlier today. Reminds me that I should finish writing about vampires. I’ve got a new angle too, since I also got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Funny thing about that show, though, is that it doesn’t agree with my theory.

Buffy’s vampires can look human, but when they feed or fight they show their vampire faces. Not very sexy. And when people get “turned” in the Buffyverse, a demon inhabits their body, making them a vampire. So much for free will.

I just started season four of seven, so we’ll see if I get a new view of the modern vampire. Maybe I’ll have to revise my theory. I guess it’s a good thing I haven’t finished writing about vampires.

Ivory Tower

Today I’m into linguistic anthropology. I read about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the “argument that language shape[s] the world rather than simply reflecting it” (Michael Agar’s Language Shock, p. 66), the example of the difference between how the Hopi and English languages treat time, and the subsequent difference in how their speakers see the world.

I think, “here’s something I can really get into, something I could make part of an academic career.” Then my mind goes on to imagine the studies, the work, and the use of this career. That’s when my excitement wanes. It’s not that I imagine I’d lose interest, but it’s the “use” of that career. I can’t help but think I’d be unsatisfied with its practical productivity, my lack of any “real” skills or knowledge.

Babble

“That’s the thing about emptiness,”

I looked into the Grand Canyon,

“it’s like when you look out at nothing:”

its red cliffs stuffed with air.

“you’re not really seeing nothing”

I tried to imagine nothing,

“cause you can’t see nothing at all.”

and the canyon’s walls surrounded it -

“It’s only when you see something”

sharply sudden and steep.

“that you realize the nothing around it -”

The openness bubbled, vacuumed.

“if you only see nothing,”

I looked to its bottom,

“then you can’t see at all.”

so far down it seemed unreal,

“That’s why when all you feel is emptiness”

and I imagined jumping to it,

“you wonder if you even exist.”

then gripped the rail a bit tighter.

Rulers

Good teachers get their students interested in the subject. That’s the best time to learn – when you want to. Great teachers can intrigue students who wouldn’t care at all otherwise. But when does the teacher decide to give up on motivating, and move to forcing? Surely not every student will get interested in every subject, even with the greatest teachers. So at what point does the teacher say, “Regardless of whether you want to, you’re learning this because you need it”?

Governments must deal with this too. Ideally there’s no discrepancy between what the people want and what they need, but we don’t always pursue what’s best for us. So how long does government try to convince its people to act a certain way before it coerces them? Parents probably face the same thing. Of course, I’m not accounting for bad teachers, governments, or parents – of which there are many – but that’s a different question.

Passage

Nine days ago I drove from New Hampshire to Virginia. Aside from breakfast outside of Boston with Kev, I only stopped once – to fill my gas tank and empty my bladder.

Along the way, I listened to:

The Gaslight Anthem – ’59 Sound
Against Me! – a friend-made mix of early stuff
Wu Tang Clan – 36 Chambers
At the Drive In – Relationship of Command
The Misfits – Collection I
Why? – Alopecia
Weezer – Pinkerton
Blink 182 – Dude Ranch & Enema of the State
Eminem – Curtain Call

And I passed:

a car on fire
(through) a long, super fast tunnel by Baltimore
the 155,000 mile mark on my car
my patience for traffic (somewhere within the Blink 182 block)
the Mason-Dixon line

Mother Tongue

I often got frustrated with my level of French, especially when hanging out with friends and meeting new people. I felt it held me back from being my “real” self.

Now that I’m stateside I don’t have to worry about my language level, but I still get frustrated sometimes about being “real.” Looks like it’s not all words.

Autograph

“Those songs…they just really helped me through some tough times.”

”Oh yeah?”

I looked up from the merchandise table, where I’d put down the vinyl for him to sign.

“It’s a brand new copy, see, cause I’m not gonna play this one.”

He reached over the t-shirts and patches.

“Mmm.”

I noticed that he wrote with his left hand to sign the album, yet I knew he played guitar righty. Just like me.

“Yeah, cause the one I have at home’s all beat up. The cover, that is. I take great care of the record itself.”

He finished writing.

“See, cause I listened to it all the time when I was away. Away from home. And it kept me going – kept me thinking about where I used to be and where I was gonna be.”

He reached over the t-shirts and patches.

“Your lyrics really stuck with me…the music too. I could relate to it all. It all just helped me remember who I was. Who I wanted to be. It filled me up and kept me from drifting away.”

I picked up the autographed album.

“Funny thing though, is that now that I listen to it – now that I’m back – all I can think of is where I was at that time. What I was feeling. You know? I can’t listen to it and not think of everything that was going on there.”

He looked up from the merchandise table, where he’d put down the vinyl he’d signed.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Trivial Pursuit

While I washed the dishes,
Kanye West asked me:
Do I know what it means to find my dreams?

In my dreams I’m lost
within place I know
that aren’t quite themselves.

I kiss girls I haven’t seen
in ten years, acquaintances
who might have been lab partners.

In my dreams I fly
sometimes, though often
my limbs move like pasta in pudding.

My dreams are a vibrant mush,
the scraps of the day’s meals
and rescrubbed spots

that wash off my mind’s
plates and forks,
then spiral down the drain.

So, Kanye, if you follow me,
my question is:
Where do my dreams go once the dishes are clean?

The Stranger

Her accent grated the words. She smiled, but it only made her look stupider. Do I sound like that? I understood what she wanted to say, and I understood the bored-looking woman at the register, but it’s always easier to get it when they’re not talking directly to you.

I bet she imagined foreign worlds, exotic flashes like movie trailers, but now she was in it. Deep. Treading, and realizing that even buying a sandwich could be daunting. I pointed to the electronic read-out next to the register. That was my trick when I didn’t understand how much money they’d asked for. I could have just told her in English, but I don’t want to be the foreigners talking to each other in their language.

We left the supermarket and passed a group of young guys. I avoided gazes, though back home I’d look them in the eyes. One guy approached us. He asked something, probably for a cigarette or a light, but neither of us understood.

He didn’t care that we both shook our heads “no.” He kept talking, walking next to us. I felt stripped. Vulnerable. I wanted to shove him. Drive elbows into his face. We kept walking until he lost interest and went back to his friends.

Ancient History, Baby

At a certain point, the past and future become opposite in the way we understand them. That is, we see the prehistoric past only through its effects, what’s left behind, while we grasp at the future by its causes. Obvious. But it’s not the case for all of the past, because the historic past can be equally understood in cause and effect, even more so than the present. So on an understanding timeline we have “effect” in prehistory, “cause and effect” in history and present, and, with “effect” starting to thin in present, we are left with “cause” in the future.

I’m not sure why I’m thinking of this, or what it does for me. Maybe a reminder that time is subjective to the observer. That human observation begets understanding, and that understanding is founded by cause and effect. Or it could be an exercise in searching for symmetry, patterns – another foundation of understanding. I also like to think of human understanding as a big bang: exploding into the past and future, searing into mystery just as matter did into nothingness.

Megalith

This is a megalith. I think it was for wedding ceremonies, but lots of people have lots of ideas about what it was for and nobody’s really sure of anything. Except that most adults have to crouch down to walk inside it.



It’s not super clear in the photo, but the symbol of a spear is engraved on the inner wall of two of the rocks. Typical prehistoric men, always thinking of their spears. There’s also a smaller engraving of a cross, but, given the date of the megalith, it was done far after the structure’s origin. Looks like the Christians and Vandals were in cahoots.



There’s no fuss about going to the megalith. No tickets or museums. It’s surrounded by farms, and when I visited it there were farmers taking care of business only twenty feet away from the megalith. I wonder if much has changed.

Spread the Wealth Around

The French government owes me money. Through the CAF (Caisse d’Allocations Familiales), a social-aide program, I am entitled to financial support each month. They calculate how much to give you based on a variety of things, including age, cost of housing, annual income from two years ago, current salary, and number of dependents. There’s more to it than that, but when all the paperwork is in, one’s aide is calculated and given monthly. Except I never got my money.

CAP aide is far more prevalent in France than welfare in the US. Taxes are higher here, but the government gives more money via programs such as the CAF. I was surprised when I found out that I qualified for government help with my rent. Many university students get monthly government checks, in addition to CAF aide. My friends were a bit shocked when I explained that I have loans with interest to pay back.

Using information from sources including the CAF, the government has designated certain neighborhoods in France as Zones Urbaines Sensibles. When I asked my friends to explain what the ZUS are, they said it’s basically the ghettos. Apparently the designation has corresponding legal and economic effects. For example, someone opening a business in the designated zone may have government aide for rent. Teachers have different incentives to work within the areas. Whether all this aide works, on a large scale, is still unclear to me.

Magic Eye

Like there’s some hidden scene,
something after the end credits have rolled,
when the magic lingers but doesn’t fulfill.

Or when all other classmates have left and
the chance has come to talk with the teacher,
to get that finalizing understanding.

Like a final deep reach into the stocking,
or a check under the tree
to see if there’s one more present waiting.

For that magic understanding, waiting,
I stay up late.

Huelgoat

A long time ago there was a battle between giants at Huelgoat. They attacked each other with enormous granite stones, and that’s why we find the rocks the way they are today.



When I saw the name “Huelgoat”, the first thing I thought of was Huey Louis and the Goats. But it’s pronounced “Ooh-el-gwat.” And since it attracts tourists passing though the area, there’s a lot of confusion when asking locals for directions.



The entire area is open to the public, and it wasn’t until recently that handrails were put up. Before, people could slip and it would take weeks before their bodies would surface further down the river. The rocks are especially slick in the “Devil’s Cave.”

Sexy Curses (Pt. 6)

Bill, the lead vampire in True Blood, is also a Byronic hero – alluringly dark and mysterious, with supernatural powers that defy the established order – the icon of the Romantic Movement. The Romantics rejected the “scientific rationalization of nature” (Wikipedia: Romanticism). Science had replaced God, and they defied the coldness of Natural law as the greatest power. They sought mystery and grandiosity. And the tortured, powerful individual filled that void.

The modern audience shares that void, as well as a glorification of the individual. In an early episode, Bill suggests to Sookie, the show’s protagonist, that not all things are explainable. Like the Romantics, he warns against using reason to dissect all. And though his remark is in a dialogue between two TV series characters, it serves just as well as a conversation with the audience. So while the old vampire lay isolated, rejected by God, the modern vampire stands alone, in defiance of reason and science...

Exposure

The pupils flare –
darkness grasps for
light in darkness –
to find what’s there.

In a slow breath
the eyes discern
and make sense of
shape, length, and depth.

Pupils collapse –
light scores chaos –
blurred order in
vision’s relapse.

Pavlov's Clap

I noticed it a while back, but didn’t think much of it until I had a TV in my apartment. Then it stood out. Every time a song would come on during a game or talk show, the entire audience would start clapping. Not applauding, as directed by a blinking “applaud” sign, but clapping with the song. Always the same rhythm too. A stiff, every upbeat, clap.

It’s Pavlovian for much of the French audience. And it doesn’t stay in the confines of TV. On my last night in Landivisiau, I attended and played in a concert put on by high school students. I had a lot of fun, and I liked getting to see the students’ creative talents. But the audience kept doing the damn clapping thing.

The worst was during this performance by the music teacher on cello and the other English assistant, a talented musician on multiple instruments, playing a traditional Russian instrument. People got excited cause the song’s familiar. But they made it hard to enjoy with their overwhelming claps. The tempo varies a lot in the performance, and the audience couldn’t hang with it. The players’ work was impressive by itself, but even more so when considering that they had a giant, off-beat metronome to contend with.

Sexy Curses (Pt. 5)

Americans love individualism. It shows in much of our economic policy, education system, and, most notably, pop culture. We obsess over superstars. Our athletes, singers, and actors get massive paychecks, and magazines are dedicated to their every move. Even before the modern tabloids, we had our ultimate individuals in Western films. The cowboy comes from some unknown town, with a dark past and no family, to exorcise his demons.

In American culture, we romanticize the outsider. The tall, dark, mysterious, and powerful figure. Men want to be him and women want to be with him. So our vampires aren’t cursed, they’re blessed. The traits that account for suffering in the old symbol of the vampire are the same qualities that make the modern vampire a sex icon...

Photograph 3

Five of them posing for the picture. Only one looks at the camera. They’re dressed mostly in black, with hair that wouldn’t pass in the military. Nothing past the shoulders, though. Males between the ages of 16 and 25. Young faces.

He’s in the back row, his head slightly blocked by another’s. The longest hair in the group, reaching the tip of his nose, he keeps it swept to one side where it partially covers an eye. His face looks a bit gaunt, but healthy.

Just as children often pose with open grins, these five pose with serious regards or preoccupied faces. Their age complements their attitudes, while their white skin contrasts with their outfits. They look like a group of young artists – critical of the world but excited for it.

Goodbye Land of the Horses

I’ve left Landivisiau for Rennes, where I’ll stay for two weeks before flying out of France. From goats to anarchists, and farms to markets. The smell of manure wafted into the car as we drove from Brittany’s heart to its capital.




In addition to cheeses and vegetables, the Saturday market in downtown Rennes has a notable seafood section. After the market ends, the city workers come out with their street cleaning machines to hose down and sweep the day’s debris. A fishy mist rises up and attacks innocent passerby.



Nearly all buildings in Brittany are made of concrete or stone. But some older ones in Rennes are wooden, with a notable eterior that reveals its beams. French tourists recognize the image from postcards, and take pictures as they walk through the market’s aisles.

Conseil de Classe (Pt. 3)

Last Thursday I talked with two high school students, both in their final year, about the conseil de classe. Since we spoke in English, one of the students didn’t contribute much because he’s usually reluctant to speak. The other student has a good level of English and likes to practice her conversation skills. She also served as a delegate for the conseil de classe, so she had a fair amount to say.

Her first point matched my now graduated friend’s, saying that the conseil de classe can work as a great medium for solving problems when they arrive. She differed, however, in her view of the relationship between the teachers and students. When I asked her what one thing she would change about the meetings, she quickly responded with “teachers’ attitudes.” She believes the meeting should serve as an opportunity to hear from students. To her, student delegates are considered non-objective, with no authority to criticize teachers’ pedagogy, and, because they aren’t encouraged to speak, the meeting is useless.

When I asked both students if they think the system should remain, they both said yes. Their reasoning was that in general the system works and can help some students. But they added that it isn’t an ideal system because it’s indirect. Especially for students, it requires working through representatives to hear and be heard. Each class meets before the conseil de classe to ask and discuss things for the delegate to bring up at the meeting. Yet when the delegates feel their voice isn’t heard, the entire student body can be left frustrated and disenchanted with the system.

Time Flies

I’ve left my mark on
the windshield of this place –

The mph of time passing
has spread me open and out.

Pounds

I never gained the “freshman fifteen” when I went to college. Actually, I think I lost weight cause I was vegan the whole year and the dinning hall didn’t offer me much. Lots of pasta, shitty wraps, and cheerios with soy milk. My older sister liked to joke about how skinny I’d gotten.

When I had my boxing match last summer I weighed in at 137 lbs. I ended my vegan diet four years ago, and eventually started to eat meat again over three years ago. That first cheeseburger tasted so good. But, weighing 137 after three years of omnivoring, it didn’t really add much weight to me. For that, I had to live in France for seven months.

The cafeteria food here is great. For about $2.50 I get a mini-baguette, appetizer, fruit, yogurt, dessert, salad, and a main dish with some assortment of vegetables, meat, and a starch. I eat all of it. And with that, I’ve gained fifteen pounds since last summer, before I left for France. Thanks to big lunches, slower metabolism, less boxing, and snacks like this:

Photograph 2

He has his head turned away, but a slight smirk suggests he knows he’s getting his photo taken. And that he’s comfortable with the photographer. The smirk looks content, not mischievous, and his eyes are shut. Probably to block out the sun.

He holds his arms tight along the side of his body. His pale, bare torso, belly up to the sky. The inflatable tube holding him above water has a watermelon pattern. Red and black, with scattered seeds.

He wears black shorts and short brown hair. Both contrast with his skin. Though the photo doesn’t show much of it, the water looks calm. Like his simple smile.

No Saint

Behind me, in these woods, is a moat and the mass it surrounds that once stood as a castle. There's a legend that the princess who lived there had a father who constantly tried to marry her off, but she refused. Eventually, in his rage, he killed her with an axe. Further up the trail is a fountain with a statue that memorializes her, Saint Anastase.



None of that is in this picture, though. These woods look ordinary, like many others I've seen. But this picture interests me more than a disappeared castle or beheaded princess turned saint. It recalls a part of me that I once cultivated, but haven't tended to in a while.

I don't feel much connection with traditional religion. I don't know if I believe in God (though I suppose knowing isn't a prerequisite to believing), and if I do believe in something I haven't defined it. But I do feel spiritual. For the past few years, however, I think I've had a spiritual regression. Maybe it's that my soul has gotten more attention, and maybe it's been a conscious decision. Nonetheless, looking into these woods felt like looking at an old picture of myself.

Covers

Next Thursday will be my last day teaching in Landivisiau. I’m a bit sad, though not necessarily because of specific things I’ll miss, but more the general feeling that something is ending. There’s a concert that night at the high school, and I might play drums for a couple of cover songs with some of my students. All students playing in the concert are in the school’s music option, a class in which students pick songs they want to cover, and learn how to play them, eventually performing at periodical concerst. It’s sweet.

Because I have a lot of music option students in one class, I made a mix cd for them. It goes:

Jezebel – Iron and Wine
Film Noir – The Gaslight Anthem
Above the Clouds (feat. Inspectah Deck) – Gang Starr
Big Dipper – Built to Spill
A Fond Farewell – Elliot Smith
Gigantic – The Pixies
Crush – The Smashing Pumpkins
Hybrid Moments – The Misfits
Protect Ya Neck – Wu Tang Clan
He War – Cat Power
Stork and Owl – TV on the Radio
Paper Thin Walls – Modest Mouse
Sprout and the Bean – Joanna Newsom
Oh – Fugazi
The 4th Branch – Immortal Technique
Those Anarcho Punx Are Mysterious – Against Me!
Things I Don’t Remember – Ugly Casanova
Lopsided – At the Drive In
BBF3 – Godspeed You! Black Emperor

The Prince (Pt. 3)

His mom gave us as many popsicles as we want.
His big brother had Nintendo in his room;
he played Contra and talked with girls on the phone.

We had orange mustaches from the popsicles.
We got mad at each other.
We stopped pushing and went to his porch.

I climbed onto the other side of the railing.
I leaned back and felt it come loose in my hands.
I woke up in his driveway.

Sexy Curses (Pt. 4)

Much of the modern audience feels as separated from God as the vampire is. In this, we both idolize and sympathize with the vampire. When there is belief in God, in heaven, as there was in the culture of the old vampire, the cursed "Upir", separation from God is a curse. But when God no longer permeates everyday life, when there is no more belief, the separation is only an absence. A void that doesn't threaten, but pangs.

Reason and science have replaced superstition and God in our understanding of the world. We send rockets into the heavens, revive hearts that stop beating, and cure diseases that threaten populations. This isn’t to overlook the billions of people who still believe in an almighty power, even in Its scriptural depiction. Yet while they may argue with science’s theories, they cannot dispute its achievements and importance in our lives. Moreover, the majority of artists and audiences shaping the symbol of the vampire do not believe in God as a dominating being who damns sinners. Their culture is founded on scientific progress and individual development...

Smooth

This is my friend Smooth. His real name isn’t Smooth, and because of the French accent it's more like “S’Moose” when we say it. But that’s how he was introduced to me: Smooth. In fact, it sounded so unlike my American pronunciation that I had no idea it was “Smooth” at first. That same day, though, I watched him skate a mini ramp in Rennes and I saw why they gave him the name.



One time, back in October, we’d come back from a pretty late night out and I fell asleep on the couch while Smooth and another friend stayed up a bit longer to talk. When they finally decided to call it a night, they had to move the couch a bit to get an extra mattress from behind it. Apparently I woke up. Smooth told me the next morning that I looked like a freaked out, wild animal, with crazy red eyes. I sat up and started talking in American super fast, none of which they understood, until they convinced me that everything was cool and I could go back to sleep.

We’ve been good friends ever since.

Monuments

The trickle slinking
deep within you
once roared and cut
your current cliffs.

Your spire slipping
into the sky
once hid as metal
deep underground.

I feel shifting:
currents within me
once churned and now
run tranquilly

My simple singing
into the sky,
now buried in memory
deep under time.

Cultural Exchange

“Have you ever been in an orgy?”

I tried to think of what the real question was, how I could have misheard it, but no. When I walked into the middle school teacher’s lounge that was the first thing said to me. A group of teachers stood in a circle and waited for my response.

“Uhhh. No? Why?”

Apparently, thanks to MTV, they thought it was a common experience for American teenagers. And here I was thinking that the French had the reputation for promiscuity and decadence.

“Isn’t that more of an ancient Rome type of thing?”

Confused looks.

“Huh? I think you lost some of your French while on vacation, Shawn.”

Damn. My comment got lost in translation. I tried to think of some other joke, a way to suggest that it was them, the French, who are known for sexual indulgence.

Nothing.

“Yeah. An orgy every weekend.”

Conseil de Classe (Pt. 2)

Last week I talked with a friend, now in a master’s program at the University of Rennes, about the conseil de classe. While at his small high school, he served as a student representative, a delegate, for a year. Ideally, I’ll talk with students, graduates, teachers, administrators, and parents as I try to learn about this aspect of the French education system. It interests me both as an education tool, as well as a representation of French culture.

The way he spoke of delegate selection reminded me a bit of student council elections at my high school (minus the flyers and speeches). Students volunteer, and if there are multiple volunteers, which isn’t always the case, there’s an election. He pointed out that a delegate should be someone who has a good rapport with all students. It doesn’t work if your delegate is the class geek or brown-noser. When I suggested some sort of academic incentive to get more students involved, he responded that he didn’t believe it’s in accordance with the principle of being a delegate.

He also said that when there aren’t any major issues, the meeting doesn’t serve as much more than a check-in, but that the conseil de classe is a great means for discussing solutions if there are problems. The specific example he gave concerned an extremely introverted student with awful hygiene, and, from what I understand, the focus in these meetings can often go beyond students’ grades. I also noted, though he didn’t make a point of it, his comment that serving as a delegate dispelled, for him, the idea of students vs. teachers.

Skate or Die

I sat in the back of the parked minivan and watched him ollie over the sewer grate. Big kids. So cool, so smooth as they popped their skateboards up on the loading docks. Rolled along with the front wheels held up and hovering over the concrete of the school parking lot. I wanted to be them.

I dragged the tail of my board on the pavement as I took a couple of quick steps forward before hopping on it. Chicken legs swimming in fat padded skate shoes. The loading dock with the coping was barely four inches off the ground, perfect for learning new tricks. It would call to me when I’d walk by the parking lot on my way to gym class. We’d have to wait for the administrators to leave the building after school though, otherwise they’d kick us out.

I spent a lot of time skating alone, practicing in my street, but I always preferred to skate with friends. We parked the car and pulled our boards out of the back. It’d been nearly eight years since we left the middle school, but the loading docks were the same as ever. The yellow lights in the parking lot let us see well enough to get our skate legs back. We rode late into the night.

Normandy Beach

I sent this email back in November, to a man I shared drinks with in Somerville before leaving for France. When I first told him I was leaving the country, he bought me a drink. Then he gave me a hard time, in good humor, when I told him I was going to teach in English in France, cause he thought I was going as a soldier.
















Hello Sir –

My father gave me your email address so I could send you these pictures, as requested. I didn’t forget. Though you can’t see it in the photos, as you walk among the graves you read the names of the soldiers and state that they were from. The statue at the front of the cemetery represents the youthful energy, hope, and sacrifice of our soldiers. Hopefully these images provide a slight glimpse of the impression one gets when there; I certainly can’t presume to capture it in words.

I drove to the monument and cemetery with two French friends, who both have grandparents who were teenagers during the German occupation. I had Sunday brunch in Brest with one friend’s grandparents and they were happy, even proud, to eat with an American. They still see us as the great liberators. Though I didn’t meet the other friend’s grandparents, we ate dinner at her parents’ house in Normandy and the mother happily told me her father’s story of getting a chocolate bar from a GI.

Thank you for asking me to take these pictures.

I hope you and your family are doing well.

Take care,

- Shawn Kelly

Architect (Second Draft)

You left it there, you simple words. Alone showing the form of tiny worlds.
Slower worlds.

The single room’s shape shapes me: the shape of a fixed world.
A limited world.

To separate architect and design; to find the architect of this world.
Cut in time.

Design shapes how I see the shapes, but perspective won’t change design.
Fixed in my design.

I fill up my world with the world; in the way of the world.
My world in the world.

A subjective architect creates, shapes: objects in spaces in objects.
Objective spaces.

Perennial subjects.
Filling space.
The object of subjective architecture.

Ideas in time.
An objective idea.
Shaping subjective perspective.

Words found ideas, the perspective to see ideas, the design. I build my world from words in the world.

My words: design my world, or the materials of my design, built on the foundation of ideas

My ideas in my words, shaped by the other words before, by the design of the room in the open world.

The shape of the worlds in these words.

Universal

This article from Wired puts into language the lightness I feel when I read stories of others’ trials and struggles, the openness I get when I look into the sky and remember the scale of my life.

It also raises questions I’ve asked myself when considering how much to examine things: Too much analysis, dwelling, can paralyze. Yet never doing so would prevent me from learning and growing. With varying degrees of sway, I’ve mostly stayed in the middle.

Funny, just reading the article made me feel good – to see my way of dealing with life experiences as merely a measurable aspect of my personality. The other issue I have, though, is the aspect of inhumanness that comes with a sense of detachment and perspective. Like I’d be missing some essential part of being.

Students vs. Teachers

Over a hundred students gathered in the gym near the high school. I, along with five other teachers, ate lunch quickly to be ready for the match. Five on five indoor soccer, one substitute per side, teachers vs. students. Our team consisted of two humanities teachers, a PE teacher, a guidance counselor, the other English assistant (from Manchester, England), and me.

The audience of students loved to cheer for us. When one of the other players, the only boy on their team, pushed me as we both went for the ball, the students all yelled at him. When one of the teachers had been out for a while as a sub, they started to chant his name so he’d come back in. At the end of the game I heard one student describe the overall experience as “euphoric.”

We gave up a goal early in the match, and didn’t score our own until about halfway through the game. Then it was close calls and missed opportunities until the end of regulation. We played two overtime periods, but neither team scored. So it went to a shootout. Their first shooter made it, and so did ours. Then they missed, but we did too. Their third shooter scored. My teammates told me to shoot: I kept my eyes down, kicked hard, and looked up to see the ball bounce off the side post. Damn French. We should have played real football.

The Prince (Pt. 2)

“What did your mom say?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not in trouble?”

“Nah. My dad took me to get this.”

Pulls out bag of candy.

“He said, ‘Good job,’ and that every time I hit the white lady I get candy.”

“What about the principal?”

“He can make me go home. I don’t care.”

Scales of Oedipus

Oedipus killed his father and slept with his mother, thus Freud titled his theory of the corresponding subconscious urge the “Oedipus Complex.” But Oedipus was only one man. What if this urge applied to cultures and humanity as a whole, not just to individuals?

God is the father and Earth is the mother. Though I lack the research to cite specifics, this symbolic notion appears in multiple cultures. I propose that western culture has, through humanity’s greatest tool, reason, and its extension, science, fulfilled its Oedipus complex.

Freud theorized a lot about repressing urges. Struggles. Some haven’t killed God, just taken away much of his power. Others are raping Earth. Societies vary in realizing their desire, but it’s there.

Passing Animals

It takes about half an hour to walk from my apartment to Landivisiau’s train station. Along the way last week, I saw these guys:



After a two hour train ride, the stroll form Rennes’ station to Aymeric’s apartment takes another half hour. There’s a shorter route to his place, but I like to walk through the center of town. I welcome the contrast between rural Landivisiau and urban Rennes; from grazing goats to begging anarchists:

Seeing Red

1 cup of corn, 1 carrot, 1 medium-sized onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 tomatoes, tomato paste, olive oil, red wine, pepper, salt

Heat olive oil in pan, then add chopped carrot, onion, garlic, and cup of corn. Add a bit more olive oil. Cook until carrots are almost soft, then add diced tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Cook for about 3-5 minutes. Add tomato paste and red wine, stirring it all together. Bring to a boil before letting it simmer for a bit.

I made this sauce to have with pasta while watching “A History of Violence” the other night. Second time for both: making a tomato sauce and watching Viggo Mortensen confront his character’s past.

My small TV picks up five channels, helped by an antenna. They’re all publicly owned French stations. Each channel has a specialty, like documentaries or popular series (usually American: Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, CSI, Dexter, The Simpsons, Sex and the City, and more), though they all show their own news programs in the morning, afternoon, and night. “A History of Violence” started at 8:55 PM.

All the films I’ve seen on TV here have been unedited. Sex, violence, nudity, drugs, swears – nothing cut out. One of my eleven-year-old students told me “Scarface” is her favorite movie, though I don’t know if she saw it on TV. So what’s more ironic, that Americans make these films but edit them for TV, or that the French criticize the violence and spectacle of the films, yet show them unedited on public TV during primetime?

Quakes

My desk is to the left, neatly organized items on cheap white plastic. A spiral-bound notebook sits on a schoolbook of local history, topped by a black planner, with a dying laptop on the desk’s other corner. I lay in bed thinking of all the things I haven’t done. Things I didn’t do yesterday, could have done today, hope to do tomorrow. Not work things, though, but things for me. And by me for others. Letters, songs, poems, stories…

The TV sits on a bookshelf against the opposite wall. It watches me in bed, as I drift through its worlds. A husband yells at a meek cop while the wife looks bewildered. Hikers document the old, stone-corralled roads that wind through Patagonia’s misty hills. People cry as rescuers strain through the rubble of their homes, searching for survivors, finding bodies of those who died in their beds.

I fall asleep trying to remember all the dreams I’ve forgotten. To feel the clarity of where I was. Those untold epics and depths and discoveries that bloom and roil as I slip through the night. Where is it all? How many times have I breathed lucidly, gasped from vividness, grasped at some sort of eternity? And what do I have to show for it? What do I have to show?

With A Little Help From My Friends

I still show off sometimes. Less often than I used to, though, whereas these days I’m more likely to show my friends off.

At this point it’s hard to say if I would have heard Kev’s music if he weren’t my friend, but I am sure that I would have listened to and shared it with others as much as I do now. Maybe more, cause I’d enjoy the mystique of discovering a new artist. Being the first to introduce him to friends. I believe many artists get support from their friends because that’s what friends do, but in this case I simply like the music, too.

www.kevinlaba.tinymenagerie.com

Other than requiring me to open a new page to listen to an mp3, I think the site is game tight. It also makes me think that I should have written a novel by now if a man as busy as Kev can do all this. For two weeks now I’ve posted something each day on this blog, and it’s satisfying, but I want to push myself a bit further. I guess I got to figure out in which direction I’m gonna shove.

Being a musician is so much cooler than being a writer.

Photograph 1

He’s old enough to walk, but likely still falls sometimes when running. To his right is a decently pruned bush. Something tended on occasional weekends. The paint job and windows of the house behind him suggest he’s in a family of suburban middle class. That and the distance between him on the walkway and the photographer on the lawn. Too much space to be urban. Not enough exterior flourish or cultivation to be rich.

He looks well fed. That’s not a euphemism for fat, but that he drinks his milk and eats his vegetables every day. Someone puts care into what he wears, as the blue of his pants and shirt stripes match his eyes. He also looks like he gets enough attention, though not too much. Probably the boy of the family. And, like most boys his age, he’s got a mix of mischief and imagination about him. He’s cupping some type of ball in his hands.

A long, yellow, plastic stick-type thing leans on the front door landing behind him. He’s alone in the photo. And the way he’s looking, or not looking, at the camera suggests that the photographer is a family member. Or someone else familiar. I don’t think he’s in school yet. There’s an ease, an impression that he’s got the whole day, limitless days, sprawled ahead of him, that the schedule of a school day hasn’t touched.

Palates

While I sliced off a piece to have with my bread, I looked up and saw him eating an enormous chunk. Straight up cheese. It had an orange rind, and he described it as “explosive.” His 11-year-old daughter cringed from it. I thought it wasn’t bad, though I had it with bread and chased it with red wine.

I said, “Wow, you’re really just going straight at it.”

He looked up, leaned back a bit with a slight smirk, “Well, you know.”

He looked classy doing it, making me feel almost barbaric in having mine with bread and wine. Must be cause he grew up in Paris. A couple of months back I was cooking dinner with the other English assistant, a Red Coat, me prepping hot dogs and burgers while she fried fish and chips. It was an England vs. America party and we invited a bunch of high school teachers to come eat and play Taboo on either the US or UK team (we killed them).

He came into the kitchen and asked, “Need any help? Or maybe another beer? You know, I brought beer made in Morlaix (a nearby town).”

We smiled, “No thanks. It’ll probably be ready soon.”

“Alright. Well, everything’s looking good.”

“Thanks – it’s nice to have the French approval in the kitchen.”

“Yes, but you see I’m Breton. So I’ll have to give you the Breton approval.”

From our arrival at his house until our departure, he spoke only Breton with his daughter. Her mother’s a Spanish teacher with Caribbean ancestry, and her father’s an English teacher with Breton ancestry. We watched some sections of a Breton dubbed version of “The Untouchables,” in which he does a couple of voice-overs. Notably the guy who gets it between the eyes at the end of the baby carriage stair case scene.

He says he uses only Breton with her so he can help preserve the language. I think he may have mentioned that her mother speaks Creole with her sometimes too. While he took us on a tour of the town, he told me that he and his wife used Spanish as the “secret” language when they didn’t want her to understand what they were saying, but now she’s starting to figure that out as well. During dinner she told me, in English, that she wanted to write a letter to Obama. It was an excellent, jealous evening.

On the Way Back

“Is it an animal? Is it small? Scary? Is it soft? A lion? A bear? I knew it.”

- Little girl playing a guessing game with her parents on the train from Rennes to Landivisau, which includes a great view of Morlaix

Also, I posted a hella-long response to Bob D.’s question on my “Tyranny of the Minority” entry. You know, in case French work contracts really do it for you.

The Stranger

The middle and high schools in Landivisiau both offer “European Section” options for history/social studies class, in which the teacher speaks almost entirely in English. At the beginning of the year I told a high school ES teachers that I’d be happy to come into his class and talk with the students about America. Students wrote down questions for me back in October, though due to a schedule conflict I didn’t get to go in until last Friday afternoon, after the class went to see “Gran Torino” in the morning. Here are some of the questions (there were also a bunch on the election):

Have you ever been to New York?
In which other states of USA have you ever been? Is it different from yours?
What is your favorite state?
Are there big differences in education between regions?

What subjects do you study at school in USA?
Do you have an exam at the end of high school?
In school, what was your typical day?
What are the differences between French school and American school?

How much does the college cost?
Is it really possible for poor students to go to the university?
Is everyday life less expensive, more expensive as France?

What do you think about the financial crack in the USA?
Is your city touched by the economic crisis?
Do you feel scared with your money in a bank?
Is a candidate able to resolve it in your opinion?

What do you think of the American foreign policy?
Do you agree with the war in Iraq? Why?
Have you got friends in Iraq?
What do you think about the 8 years under Bush’s presidence?
Are you more Republican or more Democrat? For which party do you belong?

What do you think about the gun lobby?
Do you have [a gun] yourself?
In your law, when can you drink? At what ages?
Have you an age to be able to carry a weapon?

What do you think about the French culture? What do you think of Brittany/France?
Are there French influences in everyday life?
Have you ever been in other country except France?

What sort of music do you prefer?
Do you like English rock bands? Like Oasis or Led Zeppelin? Or do you prefer American bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or Guns N’ Roses?
What’s your favorite sport? Do you play one?
What in general young American doing in free time?

Tyranny of the Minority

Three years ago, when I studied at the University of Rennes 2 in France for a semester, the students went on strike and blocked all the buildings. At first it seemed like the majority of students supported the strike and blockage, which was in response to a proposed work contract that most graduates would have when entering the work force. However, after six weeks of strike most students wanted to return to class. A minority continued to block all the campus buildings.

Rennes 2 started a new strike about seven weeks ago. Again, the situation has developed to where a minority of students blocks the majority from going to class. The president of the university – whom I once heard speak during the strike three years ago, right before a striker violently took the microphone from him – officially closed the university for safety reasons. Students squat in the buildings. The estimated cost to repair the damage from graffiti and other vandalism is around 10,000 euros. I remember the strikers asking for money at one of the weekly meetings, an assembly general, so they can eat and continue their strike.

I questioned the logic and justice of the blockage when I was a student at Rennes. Yet I thought it was an interesting culture experience, and I tried to keep an open mind. Now I’m two hours away from the university, having nearly no interaction with the strike other than seeing news reports about it, and it makes me mad. I want to attack the strikers. I want to smash their stupid barricades and squatting spots. I want to drag them by their dumb dreadlocks and ridiculous clown pants and ask them when was the last time they worked. I want to gather them all up and ship them to an uninhabited island. Go on strike there. Block others from getting an education on your own stupid island. Live on sunshine and good vibes.

The Prince (Pt. 1)

The lights went out and, like usual, everyone cheered or gasped. A frazzled lunch monitor had been dragging a gray, industrial sized trash barrel between the ends of the long, rectangular, brown-topped lunch tables, whose two to three person bench seats alternated between dim red and steady green tops. She stopped recuffing the black trash bag over the barrel’s rim. She stopped the pleading command to throw away our trash.

He calmly stood up. We all turned our heads, some lowered at an angle to see in front of the taller ones that popped up, watching. He put both hands on the edge of the table, where his elbows had been, on either side of his lunch try that he’d riddled with various degrees of puncture inflicted by one of the white, plastic butter knives, and sauced with a disgusting blend of milk, ketchup, mustard, and wrappers. He stepped his left foot onto the seat.

When he lunged his right foot up and between his hands, helped with a push from his back foot, he looked like a sprinter on the starting blocks. Just for a millisecond. Then the toe of his right raggedy, black air Jordan with the red thread stitched logo and punctured pump tongue popped the vanilla-colored, four section styrofoam tray – all soiled with various forms of the sauce that covered traces of each section’s original occupant – in a sliding, not quite vertical drive across the table.

Now it looked like a layup as he shoved off from his left foot and triumphantly stood at the end of the lunch table. A slam dunk. The crack at the middle of the table, where the janitors and lunch helpers stand on either side to fold up the tables after lunch and roll them to the walls, bulged up just a bit from his weight at the other end. Two kids across from where he’d been sitting drew back, in vain, from the gross blend the tray spewed at them. He didn’t even look down.

The subtle reflectors stitched along the lacing rise of his Jordans flashed in the near darkness as he kicked the first foot up. In a swooping, foot dragging march, he cleared trays in the path of his right foot. They lifted awkwardly into the air, mooshed on by his foot. This time he was a field goal kicker 45 yards out from the uprights. The stiff leg extension reached out to a 90 degree angle with the other leg. Scraps of food sprayed up, sprawled out. Some kids’ hands flew up to deflect the blast, while others began to clap and cheer.

Prudes

Host: So, what percentage of surveyed kids said they tried kissing like mom and dad, with the tongue, and were grossed out?

A French game show with parent-child teams. The host banters with the contestants between questions. He follows up on the last one, asking the kids if they understand the basics of sex.

Boy: The man and the woman lay together for a while, with the male parts in the female parts, until the sperm gets to the egg.

Host: Exactly. And how long do you think they have to lay together?

Boy: Thirty seconds.

Host: Thirty seconds? Interesting.

To another boy.

And how long do you think it takes?

Boy 2: Two hours.

Host: Two hours! So is it thirty seconds or two hours?

Girl: It depends on the person. Some people take thirty seconds and some people take two hours.

Host: Oh ok. So it’s not always the same for everybody.

Girl: Right. And if it only takes thirty seconds you’ll have a tiny baby.

Host: Really?

Girl: Yeah. The longer it takes the bigger the baby will be.

Host: So if it takes two hours, then you’ll have a giraffe?

A Fighting Fool

The others stretch, chat, and warm up on the dojo floor before class. I sit alone, and think about how cool it is that I’m learning Kung Fu. Wind Staff. The deep clapping sound the staff makes when you slam it flat on the carpeted floor during the form.

It still bothers me, though, that she won’t go out with me. Or that she’s sort of going out with me. That she won’t decide whether we’re going out or not. I look at my knuckles, the word I traced over all day in school, first with pen, then a black sharpie, then outlined with a red pen. I wonder what the instructor thinks of me. Wait for him to tell me that I’ve got serious potential.

I look out the screen door next to the water cooler, through the rear parking lot and into the trees. One guy’s out back training. He’s not usually in our class, either cause he’s in the next level up or because he decided to just train on his own. I think he comes to the dojo mostly to teach the kids’ classes. They love him. He’s great at Kung Fu too. The times I’ve watched him do a form, it’s like he’s fully in his body while the rest of us are only halfway in.

There’s a loud bang in the parking lot. We all turn our heads towards the screen door, as he tears it open and dive rolls into the dojo, still holding his staff. He looks up at us - focus, panic, and laughter all on his face at once. “These guys got guns!”