In Which I Make My Apologies

I really am going to write a substantive post at some point here. Honest.

This is my first week back student teaching, and I’m trying to reset my internal clock. I’m close. But not quite in “creative writing” mode yet.

In Which the Laundry, It Reproduces!

Oh dear. This is one of the truest cartoons I’ve read in a long time.

 

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

In Which I Dust Off the Blog

I’m aggravated at this blog, actually. Why, you ask?

1. WordPress won’t let me embed my Google Calendar. It was gonna be cool. Basically, anyone who read this would be able to take a look at our family calendar and see what was going on that day. Blah.
2. It hasn’t been updating itself in my absence. Silly blog. Do I have to do everything around here?
3. I’m not sure what to talk about now that I’m back.

Moreover, I’m not even sure there’s a point. Does anyone read this? Maybe I should just shut down shop.

In Which I Compose a Symphony

So you take a pre-existing piece of music – or write your own, if you’re feeling particularly ambitious. Nothing too fancy, nothing too difficult. Make sure that it has obvious movements and delicate quiet sections, and isn’t too long. Ideally it should be performable by string or wind symphony, so that both bands and orchestras can reap the rewards of performing it.

You have your ensemble up on stage, but what the audience doesn’t know is that you’ve taken a large group of students – maybe your freshmen, or another ensemble – and planted them in the audience as well. They’re the second half of the ensemble.

The important part of the piece comes in with what you add in for this second half of the ensemble…

Several of them should walk in after the song has started and take seats in the middle of the front rows, loudly apologizing and stepping on people all the way to their seats, and then noisily adjust their seats/coats/purses before sitting. This should continue at random intervals throughout the first half of the song.

At quiet parts of the piece, have a large number of them loudly crinkle stiff cellophane for at least ten seconds’ duration.

Clap enthusiastically between movements and whenever else it (erroneously) appears that the stage ensemble is at the end of a piece.

At a choreographed moment, every planted audience member’s cell phone should ring. Some of them should turn theirs off after a moment, but a few people (strategically placed for high impact) should answer their phones and have full-volume conversations.

Loud, long-lasting coughing fits should punctuate all the prettiest parts of the song.

About halfway in, one person turns on a loud recording of a screaming baby. Do not turn it off for the rest of the piece.

Pairs of plants should have conversations mid-song about any number of topics, including the performance, their jobs, homework, and the cute guy they’d like to ask out.

Near the end, at a rousing part, several people should bring out the lighters (or cell phones, depending on the circumstances).

We’ll call it the Concerto Etiqueto, and the program notes will consist of a brief list of things no civilized concert-goer should ever do.

In Which I Bask

It’s Monday afternoon, and I’m sitting in a square of sunlight on the third floor of the beautiful new building on campus. Across from me is Ryan, all dressed up and dapper after an important meeting. I’m out of work at 3 on Mondays, and he had to take the afternoon for the meeting. Now we’ve got the next hour or so just to sit, soak in the sun (in my cold-blooded case) or the air conditioning (in his long-sleeved, walked across campus case), and catch up on things.

It’s really very nice here. There’s a quiet buzz of activity floating up from the first floor, where they’ve got surprisingly good food offerings and a coffee/smoothie stand. The furniture is all adorable, modular, and comfortable; the carpet is relatively inoffensive for what they put on campuses (same as casinos, usually) and there is glass and light everywhere. Ryan and I both are in butter yellow shirts, so we probably look like cutesy twinsies. It’s okay. Everything is kind of warm and lovely right now, and I don’t mind looking goofy.

To my right is a wall of window. A pair of crows just flew by at my eye level, and beneath me the campus is divided up into blocks of green grass and white concrete, big jade trees blotting out expanses of red brick. There aren’t many people down there right now – the next between-class won’t be for another ten minutes or so – but when they come they will come in droves. There are a lot of people on campus these days, the result of normal growth and a post-Fiesta Bowl enrollment boom. Don’t laugh – it really happened. Numbers skyrocketed last January.

Lots of good people-watching here.

This is a good feeling. Sitting here, in this shiny new building (it’s a classroom building, but made to function and feel a lot like a secondary student union) I feel young again, like a sophomore or junior, just starting out on this whole college thing. I’m sitting here with Ryan, and I remember sitting in the SUB planting the seeds of a chapter and – although we didn’t know it – a marriage. Now we’re here on the other side of the equation, and yet there are more seeds, more auspicious beginnings.

There are clouds in the sky, but they are faint and wispy and manageable. The greenness is much closer and more real.

In Which It’s Now September

My laptop finally arrived! Thoughts:

• I hate Dell. I really do.
• I love my computer, though.
• Even though it isn’t anywhere near as brown as I was led to believe.
• But it’s this really gorgeous copper-brown subtle color.
• The inside? With the keys and stuff? SO pretty. Everything’s silver, no black.
• I’m a real keyboard snob, and this keyboard is AWESOME. The touchpad mouse is actually usable, too! I can get by on this without a wireless mouse for quite a while, I think.
• Can’t quite figure out how to make the webcam work.
• Vista is weird, but I think I like it.
• Office 2007 is REALLY weird. But I think I’m (going to) like it.
• Oh, man, it is SO nice to have a laptop again. I feel like I might actually catch up on my e-Life again. You know how long it’s been since I posted on this blog, but did you know how long it’s been since I read any of my sites/comics/etc. or caught up on email? Ye gourds.
• Dell didn’t send my laptop case, but it should be here Monday. That’ll be nice; the bag I’m using right now is not designed for a computer, and really hurts my shoulders.
• Note to self: check out the speakers.
• Came with nice headphones.
• Still hate Dell.

I’m working at the high school as an “intern teacher” and have been steadily getting more integrated into the classroom. I’ve had the chance to lead the class a little, and I’ve had a few amazing adventures in other peoples’ classes that you can read on my teaching journal. (If you’re reading this, and don’t know where my teaching journal is, contact me…)

The football season is off and running. I have no comment on the Washington game, except BLAH. However, this does mean that my job at the band office is also off and running, and that’s its usual mixed bag. I LOVE working with the kids, but there are other aspects that are rather challenging for me. I think that the good things will continue to outweigh the bad for the short semester ahead of me, and then I’ll have another set of problems when I can’t work at all! Hooray.

Ooo! I got my hair cut. Feels GREAT.

This is so stupid – I never intended for this to be a newsletter blog. I’m going to make a really earnest attempt to write decent posts for this site again – in fact, I may go to my “private” journal and see what I’ve written recently (not much) that might could be recycled. I haven’t had time to write ANYTHING lately, but I can do better.

Eight "Weird" Things About Me

Tagged (kinda) by 50Books.

Because I was asked this yesterday: I own six trench coats – possibly more, I may be forgetting something. One is black; the rest are wholly impractical colors which is, I feel, the only way to roll. Although I would like a tan one someday.

I’m on YouTube! This probably isn’t very odd or exciting to most people, but it’s very new and different to me. Also, uncomfortable. I always feel weird seeing/hearing myself on tape.

If there was an “eight weird things about my feet” meme, I could probably do it. For example, I clothe my feet in this order: left sock, left shoe, right sock, right shoe. I’m told this is weird. I also have an “eccentric shoe” fetish, which evolved from my earlier “crazy sock” fetish. I won’t wear shoes that don’t feel good, which apparently means I’m not actually a woman.

I’m moderately obsessed with things that have wings, particularly if they’re not supposed to have wings. I quite like birds, but they’re trumped by pegasi, dragons, flying pigs, angels, etc..

When I was in sixth grade, I typed 106 words per minute with 90% accuracy. I’ve gotten better since then.

I like dinosaurs. A lot. I was going to be a paleontologist when I grew up. I read the entire Field Guide to Dinosaurs when I was in first grade, and by third grade I’d memorized it. My favorite dinosaur is the stegosaur, although I’ve always enjoyed saying (and spelling) “pachycephalosaurus.”

If I could, I’d redecorate my entire house constantly. I have virtually unlimited contradictory tastes and love to experiment. I’d make a helluva interior designer, I think.

I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I’d like to think I more or less know, but the jury is still out…

Wear Orange/Maroon This Friday

I sent this email to my colleagues about an hour ago, and now I see that it’s making the rounds on Xanga as well, so I thought I’d post it here.

Circling Thoughts

 I didn’t intend to write any more about this, but I can’t seem to write about anything else.

The information is still being gathered and sorted out, but the story behind yesterday’s massacre is beginning to take shape. Cho Seung-Hui – a citizen of South Korea, NOT China as was previously reported – and a senior in the English department at Virginia Tech, was the killer. It appears to have been premeditated, carefully planned out; they believe he made bomb threats in the past few weeks to test the university’s security measures, and the serial numbers on his guns had been filed off. He seems to have made considerable (but futile) effort to leave an unidentifiable body when he killed himself.

(UPDATE: New reports seem to indicate that he was born in South Korea but had lived in the U.S. for over a decade. They’re saying that his creative writing was so disturbing that his professors had recommended him for counseling, and that he had a history of messed up behavior – ranting and raving about things, setting fires, stalking, etc..)

In the past several months there’s been a lot of talk about the journalistic integrity of bloggers and das internetz in general. I don’t really have an opinion on that, but man did they ever blow it yesterday. The blogging community discovered the blog of an Asian student at Virginia Tech whose LJ and Xanga were filled with photographs of himself posing with his impressive collection of firearms. His posts stopped shortly before the killings occurred, and the internet drew a conclusion. Too bad it was a completely erroneous conclusion – and too bad they dealt with their “discovery” by leaving insults, hate speech, and death threats on his blog. Good job, internets.

The way things are looking, this all centers around a failed romantic relationship. Couldn’t just leave it at a murder-suicide, though – no, this fella had to take out a few dozen innocent people with him.

I read a comment on a newsblog that said “enough arm the teachers, put a stop to this” [lack of punctuation c/o the original writer]. Kind of a strange sentiment in a way. Are we talking requiring teachers to carry weapons? What about training? Just because I’m a teacher doesn’t mean I know how to operate a handgun. (That’s a ridiculous sentence.) And are people unaware of the statistics on home invasion deaths? I know it’s different, but still – you’re most likely to be killed by your own gun. Teachers as air marshals. What a thought.

It makes you wonder, though. If you were in a building and someone came through, guns blazing, what would you do? If you were in a position where you could jump the shooter and possibly restrain him, but would seriously risk being killed yourself, would you have the courage? Would courage even factor into it, or would it be a matter of adrenaline?

And of course there’s all the speculation about whether the university took the correct course of action after the first slayings. It kind of makes me sick, to be frank. Perhaps this would be a very different news story if the university had done something different, but at a time like this is it appropriate to pile on the accusations? I’m sure that VA Tech is more of a residential school than Boise State, but I can’t help but think of my own school and what would happen if they shut down the campus in the middle of the day because of something like this. Sure, there wouldn’t be students in the classrooms at that point – they’d all be milling around outside the buildings, grousing about the change in routine, in clear line of danger instead of (relatively) safe behind closed doors. I don’t know that VA Tech did things the right way, but it seems like we ought to have the common decency to hold off a few days before attacking their decisions.

I was reading blogs and whatnot yesterday, and came across the term “media vultures” several times. At first, I was kind of rolling my eyes – for better or worse, we’re a society that cares deeply about this sort of thing, and we crave more information – our morbid curiosity is boundless. From what I could see online (being at work, I wasn’t near a television) the media seemed to be dealing with the crisis fairly respectfully. Then I went to this blog and read the comments. The vultures were literally circling this guy, and it was disgusting…

(EDIT: Speaking of which… some of the political cartoons cropping up on this topic are beautiful and moving. This one may fall in that category, artistically, but it also – to me, anyway – seems to be pretty horrible and unnecessary. Am I overreacting?)

Another blog I read today said not to be scared of events like yesterday’s, that statistically we have to expect stuff like this to happen, particularly in a culture like ours that is desensitized to violence. I disagree. I don’t know how people can be surprised that things like this happen, but I can’t imagine not being scared of it – and I’ll tell you why. For whatever reason, there are people out there who are in some way wrong. Maybe they’ve been deeply hurt, maybe they were brought up wrong, maybe they’ve suffered abuse (from parents, from peers, from whomever), maybe they’re insane, maybe they’re evil. I don’t know that we can know what causes it, but it takes people like these: 

and turns them into the sort of people who walk into a school and kill children and innocents. And we know, from interviews and evidence, that there is an element of competition for many of these people. They know what the “record” is, and they want to break it. They want to be the most infamous, the milestone. Yesterday, Cho Seung-Hui beat the record. He raised the bar. And soon – perhaps right this very moment – some person who has gone wrong is going to look at the events of yesterday and think to himself that he can do worse.

That’s why this is scary. We can’t know where this is going to happen next. It might be a college, it might be a grade school, it might be a shopping mall. It could be an adult doing the killing, or it could be a six-year-old (it’s happened). It could be four years from now or, more likely (historically speaking) it could be in the next four months. All we know is that it is going to happen, and I don’t care if that is statistical, it’s still scary.

But Why on a Thursday Night??

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I went to a Jethro Tull concert with my parents. I think I was in high school; it could have been my first year of college. For years since then, I’ve believed that the concert was Kansas, which just goes to show you how much of an impact the headline act had on me.

I hadn’t been to many concerts at that point, so when the lights dimmed I wasn’t sure what to expect. Somewhere in the darkness, a bass began to growl, and the haunting voice of a tin whistle processed through some sort of electronic phantasmagoria thrilled across the arena. There were a few anticapatory hoots and hollers from the crowd. The bassist played a chord as a column of light illuminated him – black t-shirt, black jeans – and one by one the rest of the band, similarly clad, burst into light and sound. The arena erupted into what might once have been an Irish jig if that jig were played on electric guitars, electric fiddle, and gallons of Killian’s.

It was just the warm-up act, some band that no one in Boise had ever heard of, and everyone was going nuts. Their set ranged from true Celtic music to hard-edged rock, from songs tinged with country to wild, hormonal explosions of improvisation. I fell in love and declared to my mom that I’d miss her, but I had to go grab my saxophone and devote the rest of my life to convincing this band that they needed a curly-haired redheaded lass in their mix. (It might have worked. At the time I was in the neighborhood of 18, 125 pounds, with a fantastic perm inspired by the <a href=”http://images.easyart.com/i/prints/rw/lg/6/8/Edmund-Blair-Leighton-The-Accolade-6895.jpg
“>prints on my bedroom wall. They probably would’ve taken me. )

The band was the Young Dubliners. I’ve been to more Young Dubliners concerts at this point than I have all over concerts combined, and they still feel like liquid joy pumping through my veins when they perform. I’ve got all their albums, and have their most recent one autographed by the whole band. (“To Kate, scribble scribble scribble scribble scribble.”) I’m friends with them on MySpace (they may be my only band), and their profile describes their sound as “The Chieftans and Dave Matthews Band had a love child, who then fooled around with the Foofighters.” It’s not a bad description. In addition to those artists, and the obvious “traditional Irish music,” they claim The Waterboys, Big Country, Del Amitri, U2, Oasis, Radiohead, The Police, The Pogues, and Hothouse Flowers as influences. They’re a tad eclectic.

Last night’s concert would have been amazing if they’d just skipped all the crap and went straight to the Dubs. For one thing, if you’re going to have a concert that starts at 8 PM for a group that doesn’t usually have a warmup act, you probably ought to mention somewhere that you’re planning on having two mediocre warmup acts and that the actual concert won’t start until 10 PM.

For another, you shouldn’t sell tickets to ghosts. You heard me right – last night’s concert was haunted. The second warmup act was spotted with long periods of silence when the guitar feed fell mysteriously silent, and that was only the most annoying weird occurrence of the evening. My favorite was when Keith (the Dub’s vocalist) leaned into the microphone mid-song and his guitar just fell off of his neck. Throughout the evening someone or something unplugged his guitar cord several times, adding just another fun element to the carnival of “Keith Roberts breaking as many guitar strings as humanly possible in the space of a one-hour concert.” (I think he made it through six guitars, four of which were in the first four songs.)

Ry and I finally found a table right on the front edge of the seating, maybe twenty feet from the stage, and that was great while it lasted. Earlier we’d been standing at the bar, distracted from the main show by a man who had become fantastically intoxicated and then decided that the only prerequisite to being able to dance a jig was alcohol consumption. I was going to try to describe his flailing pirouettes, but there really just aren’t words for how hilarious it all was.

Speaking of hilarious, I bring you two Keith quotes (his mouth is a tad infamous):

• “It’s going to be St. Patrick’s Day, the one day in the year when all of us – men, women, Catholic, Protestant, white, black, Chinese – can all come together and get sh–faced because we’re Irish!”
• [On realizing there were some kids in the audience] “I’ll try not to say f— as much as I usually do. Of course, we types can say it all we want, can’t we, and it doesn’t even sound like cursing. I mean,” [dropping his Irish accent for an American one], “I say ‘f— this’ and everyone’s ‘oh my goodness, what did he say!’ but I can go,” [Irish accent back on] “what the f—, it’s f—ing St. Patrick’s Day,’ and it sounds just fine!” [True!]

This concert was the first stop on their mini-tour promoting their new album, “With All Due Respect.” The album is pretty much all covers of Irish music, and it’s March, so there was a heavier emphasis than usual on the more traditional elements of their repertoire. No complaints there – variety is good. Tonight they’re playing near Sun Valley, and then they’re off to the races. Next March they’re headed back to Ireland for a tour, and they’re taking their fans with them… so if I can come up with the money, maybe I can run away with the Young Dubs after all!

They may be coming to a club near you. If they are, go. No excuses! It’s just one concert, and if you hate it you never have to go back, but if you love it you’ll thank me forever. No, they’re not Elvis or whatever; I have a hard time imagining they’ll ever be Top 40. But they’re so much fun. They legitimately love their fans, they love their music, and it shows. If they’re not heading your way, but you’re interested, pick up a CD. I’d recommend With All Due Respect if you’re really into Celtic music, and Red if you’re more rock or mainstream oriented – honestly, I’d recommend Red to everyone, but that’s just me.

Mar 10th / Sat / Salt Lake City, UT
The Depot

Mar 11th / Sun / Pomona, CA
Pomona Irish Festival
http://www.la-irishfair.com/2007/Schedule.htm

Mar 12th / Mon / Denver, CO
A Free In Store performance at Twist and Shout 5pm

Mar 13th / Tue / Redcliff, CO
Mango’s

Mar 14th / Wed / Redcliff, CO
Mango’s

Mar 15th / Thurs / Denver, CO
FADO’s (outside)

Mar 16th / Fri / West Hollywood, CA
The Key Club
www.keyclub.com

Mar 17th / Sat / San Diego, CA
Sham Rock in the Gaslamp

Mar 22nd / Thurs / Phoenix, AZ

The Rhythm Room

April 7th / Sat / Breckenridge, CO
Beerfest

April 8th / Sun / Evergreen, CO
The Little Bear

April 22nd / Sun / Westchester, CA
Loyola Marymount University

May 27th / Sun / East Durham, NY
East Durham Irish Festival

May 31st / Thurs / Brookdale, CA

Brookdale Lodge

June 1st / Fri / San Francisc, CA
Red Devil Lounge

June 2nd / Sat / Fairfax, CA
19 Broadway

June 3rd / Sun / Bend, OR

Les Schwab Amphitheatre

June 4th / Mon / Portland, OR
The Aladdin theatre

June 5th / Tues / Eugene, OR
WOW Hall

June 7th / Thurs / Tuolumne, CA
Black Oak Casino

June 8th & 9th / Fri & Sat / Reno, NV

Sands Casino

June 28th July 21st Scandinavia

July 29th / Sun Woodland Hills, CA
Warner Center Park Free Concert Series

Aug 8th / Wed / West Allis, WI
Wisconsin State Fair

Aug 10th & 11th/ Fri & Sat / St Paul, MN
Minnesota Irish Festival

Aug 15th / Wed / Philadelphia, PA

The World Cafe

Aug 16th / Thurs / Annapolis, MD
Rams Head on Stage

Aug 17th / Fri / Sellersville, PA
Sellersville Theatre

Aug 18th / Sat / Westampton, NJ
Burlington Amphitheater

Aug 31st / Fri / Kansas City, MO
Kansas City Irish Festival

Sept 15 / Sat / Altamont, NY

Irish 2000 Fest