My inner hair color

Just in time for New Year's Eve.

Your Hair Should Be Orange

Expressive, deep, and one of a kind. You pull off "weird" well - hardly anyone notices. Apparantly, I also look like a girl...

http://www.blogthings.com/whatsyourfunkyinnerhaircolorquiz/">What's Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

Steamboy!

Yesterday evening I took a break from grading to watch Katsuhiro ”tomo's “Steamboy,” which my artsy, anime loving brother loaned me on Christmas day. This is the best anime, the best animated anything, I have ever seen. The detail of the artwork was astounding. The movement, especially during the frequent action scenes and panoramas of the film’s steampunk alternate historical England, was smooth and natural. The story, a standard formula for the genre in my experience, presents the innocence of children as sufficient to defeat the evils of the military industrial complex and establish a peace based on unilateral pacifism (classic Romanticism with the lead character even flying around on a steam powered jet pack, trailing Wordsworth’s “clouds of glory”). Okay, the story was lame, but most action movie stories are. The point really isn’t the story. The point is the amazing artistry, which is also packed with fun allusions to a variety of works and writers such as “Star Wars,” Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson, and (with Patrick Stewart supplying the voice of the grandfather in the English dubbed version) Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The beautiful animation, intense action, and fantastic steampunk technology combine to create a unique viewing experience. Watch this movie!

Photo

This little fellow showed up on Christmas eve, as soon as the sun came up. I spent the better part of the morning following his antics, eventually taking this shot.

Whew, am I tired

The majority of our Christmas celebrations are over. We spent today, mostly, collapsed among the presents, wrapping paper, and assorted debris, rising occasionally for scavenging in the kitchen among the remains of yesterday's feast.

We are utterly exhausted and horribly happy. Here's hoping everyone else is too.

Whew, am I tired

The majority of our Christmas celebrations are over. We spent today, mostly, collapsed among the presents, wrapping paper, and assorted debris, rising occasionally for scavenging in the kitchen among the remains of yesterday's feast.

We are utterly exhausted and horribly happy. Here's hoping everyone else is too.

The season begins

I am officially on Christmas break. Whoopee.

The Woman and I slept in this morning, made cinnamon rolls, and exchanged gifts with the kids. They are tearing around the house while talking to each other on their new walkie talkies. The Woman is finishing a project on her computer. I'm avoiding fixing lunch.

I have officially received the good movie version of "Robin Hood": the one with Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman, Twentieth Century Fox, 1991. It rocks! Kevin Costner's Ewok-like villagers can't begin to compare to Jeroen Krabbe's (the bad guy) outrageous French accent. Woo hoo!

How I know today is the last day of the semester

I am inundated with desk monkeys who are in full panic behavior. I am telling them, "No, I will not reteach the last six weeks right now just for you, and your really big project is really due right now if you want any credit for it."

Poo is flying everywhere.

"I left without my hat."
--Bob Dylan

More student writing

"That is why I try to have good punctiation and grammar usage. Som other revisions I have made is dangling modifiers. I have completely go rid of them in my essays."

Fiendish experiment

Apparently, I won't be able to get a teenager repelling device for Christmas. However, I have found a tolerable substitute: bagpipe music.

I conducted an experiment yesterday to see if bagpipe music played in excess of 80 decibels would have an effect similar to the device in the above news story. I began with a recording of "Jim Tweedie's Sea-Leg" by the Red Hackle Pipes and Drums.

Within two minutes the room was emptied of teens.

Happy impending Christmas!

Today is a good day

Today is the staff Christmas dinner. It's a carry in and The Woman stayed up late and woke up early to make a dish for me to take-- deviled eggs. She put in a lot of work to make a dish she didn't even get to sample. After all, who wants deviled eggs for breakfast? Okay, besides me. They were so good that only a few are left and the official lunch hasn't started yet.

Fortunately for me, my prep period is the one before lunch. I got the first shot at the food.




I can barely move.

Cockroaches on welfare?!

An excerpt of student writing:

"Her house was dingy, infested with cockroaches and they were living on welfare."

Mr. Personality

I am pleased to announce that I lost Student Council's fundraising contest to elect this year's Mr. Personality at my school.

I've seen the costume the winner has to wear.

"Play to lose"-- that's my motto.

The New Man

"The roots of life remain immortal and invulnerable in us if we will continue to keep morally alive by hope. Yet hope in its full supernatural dimension is beyond our power. And when we try to keep ourselves in hope by sheer violent persistence in willing to live, we end if not in despair in what is worse-- delusion. (For in reality such delusion is a despair that refuses to take cognizance of itself. It is the merciful form which cowards give to their despair.)"

--Thomas Merton

Sometimes I fear that this explains my experience of Western Protestantism.

On the other hand, today's sermon in church turned on the difference between agape and agapao in John 3:16. One doesn't get that often in churches around here.

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink

I've been nudged by Cindy at Quotidian Light to post five random facts about myself and then tag five other people.

I'm not sure five people read my blog who haven't already done this:

1. My childhood Boy Scout leader went to a federal penitentiary as a member of a neo-Nazi group (After a shoot out in Montana, although he was not a participant). I don't think other Boy Scouts learned how to march and dig trenches with so much intensity;
2. My dad once taught me how to use my Boy Scout scarf as a weapon in a bar fight- something every 11-year-old needs to know;
3. I have two neckties with Winnie the Pooh on them because I like to tell people, "Look, I have poo on my tie!"
4. I tear up every time I teach the last chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird;
5. I want to be Sean Bean.

I'll tag: Matt, Tim, Randy, Beth, and David.

On a lark

Yes, I should be grading. Sometimes though, I simply must have a break. I found this site through Image's newsletter.

Ha!

Stuff in the mail

Today is the big day. I finally received the photographer's CD with all the desk monkeys' mug shots on it. I can feel that yearbook pressure building.

Still grading...

End of the quarter

We start Christmas break next Friday. Yes, we can still say "Christmas" at this school. Sometimes being rural and obscure is a good thing. Anyway, grades are due by next Thursday at the end of the day.

I guess I should record some grades for this quarter.

I may be posting less for a week or so.

Just finished teaching...

To Kill a Mockingbird.

In honor of the occasion, I post this link to a much funnier but much less literary version of the classic novel.

Thanks to Jeremy, who posted the first link to it that I ever saw.

Why I hate meetings

Yep. I was in a so-called short meeting today. It ate up my planning period and part of lunch. Grr. Maybe I could just live under my desk and eat chalk.

Reading

Alice Weaver Flaherty's analysis of hypergraphia in relation to brain function and as a brain state is a lot more interesting than a one phrase description of the book may sound. Fortunately for me, she is not overly technical: I know nothing about neurology. Instead, she is insightful, funny, honest, charming, and witty. She openly discusses her own hypergraphia and hospitalization as well as her work with her own patients. She also discusses famous writers in the literary cannon who may have been hypergraphics.

Flaherty's subject matter and her approach to writing about it suggest strong parallels with Kay Redfield Jamison's books on mania and depression in creative artists. Indeed, people who like Jameson will probably like Flaherty as well. I certainly do. Their styles and voices, though, are quite different. Nevertheless, they both make difficult, often mystified subjects (especially in literary theory) easier to understand as genuine disorders with effective treatments. I hope that both writers will encourage people with hypergraphia, mania, and depression to be willing to take the medications that can give them help without fear of loosing their creative gifts.

If I were a character in Beowulf

Cindy, at Quotidian Light, posted this test a few days ago. So, I had to take it too. Beowulf is one of my favorite stories of all time.

Hwaet we Gar-Dena in gear-dagum
peod-cyninga prym gefrunon
hu oa aepelingas ellen fremedon....

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic camaigns.


If You Were in Beowulf...
created with QuizFarm.com

Beowulf 75% Hrothgar 75% The Dragon 58% Wiglaf 58% Wealhtheow 50% Grendel's Mother 50% Grendel 33% If You Were in Beowulf... created with QuizFarm.com

Back at it

The temperatures here are still really cold, but the roads are all cleared of ice. School is back in session.

I could have really enjoyed a four-day weekend.

The desk monkeys are telling me that I'm a bad teacher because I'm not supposed to want snow days. But I talk to the other teachers. We all want snow days and lots of them.

I hung some Christmas decorations in my classroom. Does that make up for the snow day thing?

Happy impending Christmas.

Dog gone!

The cats are exquisitely happy.

The dumped dog is finally gone. She was successfully adopted by a family up the highway from us. They already have several dogs and several kids, so she should get the attention she was craving here and not getting. They also have a warm place for her to sleep. This is a plus, as we have gone from unusually-warm-for-this-time-of-year temperatures to unusually-cold-for-this-time-of-year temperatures. The new owners are already planning to take her to the vet for a checkup. Bless their hearts.

The timing could not have been better. We spent the night enduring the same arctic air mass that has been freezing the middle US all the way to Texas. Single digit temperatures may not seem very wintry to some northerners, but they seem horrible to us here in Southern Missouri.

Well, doggies!

Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway, metaphorically), school was canceled today. We’re not really having a snow day: we have practically no snow and what we do have is dry and powdery, wispy snow. Rather, school was canceled because today’s high temperature (28 degrees) occurred at about 1 a.m., according to a local TV station. We are supposed to be headed for a low around zero tomorrow morning. The roads were slick, and temperatures were frigid.

I don’t mind the day off too much. Any day without desk monkeys is a good day. Plus, I got to relax in the living room until 7:00 and talk to The Woman. Then I went to school but only worked until 2:00. Oh, the decadence.

A festive Christmas story

Tuesday before last, Chaos's teacher told the class to practice their vocabulary words by using them all in a Christmas story, underlining the words as they use them. Her story earned an A, and was so creative that I have copied it here.

...Today is especially busy for Chirstchans. From their point of veiwe, we can see why Christmas is precious and social A long time ago a young woman named Mary was cleaning her house. Back then there was not a single commercial I don't think there was a national song too. And no dictionary a donkey or a horse had the fastest motion too. As Mary bent into position to wash the floor, an angel appered as Mary asked the Angel a question. She founed out she would marry and bring Jesuse iinto the world. (Jesuse is Gods son.) Once Mary was marryed a time to count the population and gather taxes came. So Mary and her husband Josehp went to Bethalham. After Mary and Josehp walked Mary rode a donkey that was not artificial. They payed their financial needs. They looked for inns that would have room for them. No inn could give them room. (Some were so full that you could see feet out of the windows.) Whene they found a gracious innkeeper they looked like a glacier. When the suggestion of a stable to stay in came Mary and Joseph said yes they paid a fraction of their money and were verry cautious. (not to mention the mule was panting.) (not!) Then Mary gave bith to Jesuse through exhaustion and digestion the Christ was born. (Or the New king.)

I have 16-year-olds at school who can't do that well. The kid is a jeenius.

Okay, this is what I really want for Christmas

When I first saw this story I thought it was a prank.

Now I want one really, really badly. I wonder how many cookies I would have to leave for Santa.

This is what happens when the cats get outside

Yes, we still have the dog....

Why teaching ethics in journalism is so hard

Now that I am back at school and away from the people with needles and scopes and such thinks, I can resume browsing the news, a habit that every journalism teacher should cultivate. Imagine my surprise when this story broke.

With depressing regularity, someone in the media pulls a stunt like this and my desk monkeys want to know why "real" journalists can alter photos and make things up, but they get zeros on any assignments that are not 100% provably true. What am I supposed to tell them? "You can't make things up until you have the necessary political connections"? "You can't make stuff up until you can transform being fired into a book or movie deal"?

Perhaps society really is doomed.

Finally, a diagnosis

For lack of a better guess, my urologist (what a horrible pair of words) has decided that I have an infection of the prostate that somehow makes my kidneys bleed and my prostate seem normal.

I think he just doesn't want to admit that he should have caught a kidney infection in the first place. Well whatever. I have antibiotics now, and they are doing a dandy job. Plus, I get to eat now. I had a huge pile of brisket at The Rib Crib down the street from the hospital.

I had food!!!

Huzzah!