Newbery X - 1931

Yes, I'm still doing this for some reason!

The tenth Newbery winner was The Cat Who Went To Heaven, by Elizabeth Coatsworth. This slim tale is set "far away in Japan" (exotic locales, as we have seen in this series, being to the Newbery as playing the wise moron is to the Oscar).

A poor artist's housekeeper brings in a small spotted cat, who is named Good Fortune. Shortly afterwards, the artist is commissioned by a temple to paint Buddha’s death scene. The artist meditates on the various sacrifices that various animals --- the snail, the horse, the deer, the ox, the monkey, the dog --- all made for the dying Buddha, or made when they were the Buddha in a different lifetime, and then he paints them coming to pay respects. Then, even though the cat, an independent, ill-favored animal, did not receive the Buddha’s blessing on his death, the artist puts the cat in the picture as well. This is not looked upon favorably by the local priest.

It’s a sweet tale, full of gently subtle teachings on restraint, sacrifice, and love for all beings. Many of the animals sacrifice themselves for the benefit of Buddha or their masters; the deer, for example, convinces a king to become vegetarian by offering himself for sacrifice at a feast.

Recommended for children: I would guess that most American kids these days would find this a charming story, perhaps a bit over their heads but planting seeds of great ideas for the future. It’s not as lightweight as its brevity implies, and has a certain timeless, fairy tale quality to it.

Recommended for adults: Yes, for the same reasons.

Vexillology II

Remember when one time a ways back I talked about flags? And then Michael5000 started making it a regular feature on his blog and did it so much better and everything because he's a blogging wunderkind. But here is another flag post anyway because I'm staying away from social updates for now. Maybe next Saturday it'll be a meme! Or some more thoughts on randomly selected songs! Or I'll have quit blogging again!

Anyway. Without further ado, three flags chosen at random.

The Philippines












White triangle, field of dark blue, field of scarlet. On the triangle is a sun with eight rays, representing the original eight provinces of Philippines, and three small stars that represent the three major island groups. Nice colors, very good visuals, almost aerodynamic (the eye is gently directed from hoist to fly), and richly symbolic. Grade: A

Morocco












Ugh! Maybe it looks better in real life:












It's not as visually unappealing up there on the flagpole, but it's still pretty blah. I'll admit that the interlacing green pentangle is an interesting design, but all by itself on that field of red it loses something, and it seems as though most Moroccan flags just use a solid line for the star instead of the over-and-under motif seen above. When that's the case, this flag has very little going for it other than in-your-face starkness. But haven't they ever heard of opposing colors? Grade: C+

Peru










Zzzzzz. Actually this, though it is the official national flag, seems to be a template of sorts, upon which various defacements can be be placed. So it seems as though most government establishments fly this, the national ensign, marked with the Peruvian coat of arms:











The coat of arms depicts a vicuna, the quinine tree, and a cornucopia, all in a shield surrounded by a wreath, crested by a smaller wreath. All of which is mighty impressive --- first, the pride in the national resources, and second, having the chutzpah to stick wreaths pretty much wherever the fancy takes you. Grade: D for the national flag, B+ for the ensign.

Maybe we could just be friends; I'm being a bit presumptuous

Last day of Teacher Week.

After a morning meeting, pretty near the whole faculty piled into a big ol' charter bus and we visited the construction site of a brand new science center which is in the process of being built in our fair burg. The director gave us a talk about all the child-friendly science activities there will be, and we wandered around the room that will one day be the lobby, looking at scale models of the planned layout. I wanted to pull a Zoolander and act outraged that the new science center was going to be so uselessly tiny, but maturity prevailed.

Then the team ate lunch at one of my favorite Tex-Mex places. This week has had a lot of eating out. Next week I'm going to start bagging it. Back to school again, we worked on a few projects. In the afternoon, there was a social gathering at school, in the gym. It was a goodbye to an important admin assistant, and wine was served, making it the first time in my experience alcohol had been given to teachers on the Prestigius campus.

Muffin and her husband hosted a barbecue that 74, Friar and possibly Courtney attended, but I skipped it to have dinner with my aunt, here for the weekend --- she used to live in town but now lives in L.A. with a sugar daddy and leads a globe-trotting, adventurous lifestyle (whitewater rapids, Jay-Z concerts, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Singapore) in her 60s.

There's no one road; we should not be the same, but I'm just a ghost

Today the teachers led orientations on their grade levels to new parents in their rooms. About eight kids' parents showed up, out of a class of nineteen. I walked them through a brief PowerPoint presentation, answering questions about lunch, snack, backpacks, curriculum, and so on. Nearly everyone was good-natured and pleasant. Most seemed on board with my rather eccentric style. Except one woman, whose face was a bitter pinched mask of disdain, and said only one thing to me, a criticism about the work group I'd randomly put her daughter in. I think she might be what we call a High Maintenance parent.

The class is pretty full, but I think I have a good group. I have two kids who are siblings of kids in last year's class and one girl who's the sister of one of my favorite kids, a girl in my very first class at Prestigius, back in 2008-9.

Had lunch with the team again. Then sat through the same unintentionally hilarious '80s video on first aid and blood-borne diseases that Prestigius has shown every year since I've been there. Then they asked us for money for various Funds, another annual tradition. Then we got root beer floats, so I guess it evens out.

Sorrow's native son, he will not smile for anyone

The major achievement of my day was making it through the day without napping after work. First time this week!

My assistant and I continued with the preparations. Damn, this blog is already like a damn Grisham novel, isn't it? Thrill as we clean out dried-up and stinky old paint pots left from last year! Tremble as I use the paper cutter to make journal covers! Gasp in awe as I wait around for the school's servers to come back online so I can print! Cheer as I write the kids' names on every conceivable surface in the room!

Also our team, teachers and assistants, went out for lunch. I think I may have mentioned that Prestigius hires a disproportionately high percentage of preposterously good-looking young women, and my team exemplifies that (except me, Ms. Hatfield who is a grandmotherly type, and her assistant who is the great-grandmotherly type). So on that basis alone it's nice to hang out with the team; but I thought it was good to get some social bonding in. It was a good time. Everyone was cheerful and there was none of that awkwardness you sometimes get with co-workers out socially. All good, except one of our colleagues didn't go.

Last year's team was very tight-knit, cheerful and bantering. Unlike a lot of grade level teams, we genuinely got along. But then Ms. Kent had her second child, and she took her maternity leave, and should return this year as an in-house substitute. Her place has been taken by Ms. Blah, who was on our team my first year, then was transferred to first grade and now is back again. She was and remains excessively negative and complains about everything, constantly interpreting every request from admin as an example of their incompetence and generally giving off the air of being bitter and put-upon. I don't like being around people like that. Hopefully we can still make it as a team this year.

I can't keep it in, I've gotta let it out

Teacher Days Week: Day 2: The Enteachering.

More getting ready for the kids. The usual busywork: making math folders, handwriting folders, journals, name tags, chair tags, orientation packets for parents, calendar pieces, etc.

There were only two high- (or perhaps low-) lights to the day, besides a tasty free lunch.

The first was sexual harassment prevention training, led perhaps inevitably by the world's most androgynous lawyer, who was, no exaggeration at all, a living breathing real-world Pat from "Saturday Night Live." Except for the grossest quid-pro-quo chauvinist scenarios, I am guilty of most of the things she listed as taboo. I have no thought-to-language filter. At one point, she mentioned in the process of making a point, "I'm not saying that anyone wakes up in the morning and asks themselves how they can most offend their co-workers that day, but..." When she said that, four or five teachers looked over at me pointedly. I'm the counter-example.

The second was a talk from the art teacher about how we can't post the kids' art in the hallways and we have to respect the physical space by not having non-school-sanctioned furniture, personal items, microwaves, or anything else anywhere visible. Nearly every member of the faculty quietly resents the art teacher for her aesthetic ascetic crusade, which began last year and resulted in a mass removal of literally roomfuls of perfectly good material (pencil cups, shelves, books, stamps, bins, file folders) across the entire school. I have more or less ignored everything she has tried to initiate, but then my room has always been fairly bare anyway.

A lot has changed in the year and a half since I abruptly dropped this blog. I'm on my third assistant, dozens of faculty members have come and gone, the Head is new, I had a very brief and ridiculous relationship with a co-worker (always a bad idea)... I'm trying this year to be more friendly and positive. It's hard, though. I mean, I've always been helpful and courteous when people actually need something, but I have typically derided the everyday empty courtesies. Not only is it hard to change habits, it's also hard for others to see small nudges toward improvement from someone who has until then shown three or four years of disinterest.

Someone keeps saying I'm insane to complain

This summer I read the entire archives of this blog. Yes, I was surprised by the unrelenting bleating, whining, resentful, martyred tone, and quickly got sick of my pathetic self-abnegation, but I remembered the reasons I began this blog in the first place.

First, as a way of taking personal stock. Gnōthi seauton and all that. In some ways getting it all out on the screen helped me deal with my issues. It's like self-administered therapy. Or cheaper Prozac. If you suffer from depression, ask your doctor if Blogaxia is right for you. Side effects of Blogazia include whining, midsection weight gain from constant sitting, and a general unhealthy pallor. Try to get outside once in a while too, Mopey.

Second, as a way of chronicling career progression. In that the blog succeeded, and might continue to serve.

So, hey.

Today was the first day back after summer at Prestigius. We have about a dozen new faces on staff, plus a new Head. It's a lady Head! That's crazy. Although soft spoken and friendly, she has already set some grumblers a-grumbling by saying all teachers need to stay a half hour after carpool every day. I almost always did that anyway, but most didn't; it was distinct trait of Prestigius that the teachers would fly out the door right after the students, which is hardly the case at most schools.

No kids at school yet, just the usual morale-building get-togethers, welcoming speeches, information and schedule arranging, and work in the classroom.

More tomorrow.

Newbery IX - 1930

The ninth winner of the Newbery award was Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, by Rachel Field.

This rather charming book purports to be the autobiography of a small antebellum wooden doll, the titular Hitty, who is carved out of mountain ash-wood by a traveling peddler.

Preoccupied with her fine clothing and her dignity, Hitty goes through a variety of more or less unrelated adventures, from being taken to a crow’s nest by a mother bird, to staying a year in a barn with mice, to being worshiped as an idol by island "savages," to being used as in an Indian fakir’s snake-charming act, to serving as a portrait-painter’s prop, to touring as an antique at a doll show. With each passing year she learns a bit more about people and their various cultures and foibles, and loses bit by bit her vanity.

It’s thus broadly similar in content and plot to Kate DiCamillo’s excellent 2006 book The Miraculous Journey Of Edward Tulane, but with a less modern (obviously), less mature attitude toward love and loss. Any lessons learned about human nature in Field's book are clearly secondary to the whimsical fantasy of the sentient doll. It's certainly an enjoyable adventure story, full of twists and turns, suspense and drama (and how telling that in order for the protagonist in such a globe-trotting adventure, normally the province of boys alone, to be female, it must be a wooden doll). It's also often wryly amusing, so fun to read for an adult as well as a child.

I don't want to belittle the book for what it's not, which is the most ignorant style of review. But I think the premise offers a good chance to parody, reflect, or magnify human nature through observation and allegory, a chance that Field missed in favor of a simpler tale of the episodic ups and downs in a wooden doll's life. Perhaps this is just an aspect of the book's being dated; modern children want and deserve deeper messages in their literature, even in their fantasy.

Recommended for children: Yes, it's a fun story.

Recommended for adults: It's hardly a bad book, but I can't think why an adult would want to read it unless he was reading all the Newberys in chronological order for some reason.

The Best Lyric Of All Time

Q: O wise Sage, what is the best lyric of all time?

A: The best lyric of all time is:

Now I guess I'll have to tell 'em
That I got no cerebellum
- "Teenage Lobotomy," Ramones

Don't get crushed in the iron fist

We had a faculty meeting yesterday about using observation of kids to help us teach more effectively. The presenter had a lot of good ideas and sample materials. One of her introductory exercises, a sort of attention grabber, was to have the teachers list the kids in their class, not alphabetically or by gender or any other way except as they came to our minds singly. Everyone forgot about at least one of their own students. It was an interesting and informative experiment, and offered some food for thought about who was first in our minds, and why, and who went unnoticed, and why.

One thing she suggested was to step back and simply observe altercations, as long as they were safe, and to quash that teacher's impulse to solve problems for the kids. It can be quite enlightening to see how the kids work it out when they have to, and gives the teacher a better idea of what the power structure is like in the room.

Well, so this morning the boys were flailing around with the plastic animals, making them all charge and hit each other, and I was on the verge of saying, "Quit fighting with the animals," as I have so often before, but this time I bit my tongue and watched. After assessing the chaos, I stepped in, but didn't address anyone's behavior. I just said, "Shouldn't the lion be chasing the kangaroo, instead of the other way around? He's a carnivore, while the kangaroo is an herbivore."

Well, that set off a flurry of boys examining the animals and assessing them. Is a leopard a predator? How can we tell? Isn't an elephant a predator --- if not, what are those long fangs for? Can't a rhino fight off a tiger? Yes, the boys were still having the animals fight, but now it was a richer, more controlled fight. It was a great moment. I really like it when staff development is actually useful like that.

Another thing she reminded us was that classroom management is not about control. It's futile to try to "control" children --- that may work in the immediate term, but it's not teaching and it's not efficacious. What teachers should strive to do is give students strategies to guide their own behavior. You have to understand how they act. And the best way to do that is to step back, refrain from jumping in, and just observe them. And record them.

And lo and behold, this evening I came home and read in the fantastic book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind:

"Even though you try to put people under some control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in its wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a wide, spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy."

Man, that's Synchronicity, man.

My life is standing still but I'm still alive

Today, Prestigius was closed to students, but the teachers came in for a full work day, because it was that time again --- visits from prospective students! Of, course as I learned from this day and its follow-up, no one gives a tinker's dam what we teachers have to say on these kids' files, so it was pretty stress-free day. I saw Muffin and her little kid who is applying for Pre-K.

There was a smart bunch of kids visiting my room, very pleasant for the most part, and we had a lot of fun. There were eight of them (four didn't show up, which means their parents paid the $150 admissions fee for nothing, I guess) in the room with two teachers, me and Mrs. Hatfield, plus our two assistants. That's a very relaxing ratio.

At the end, we went to the circle and played the "what do they have in common" game. To introduce them to the concept, I gave them the easiest one. I named all of the girls, and they stood up one by one. "Now," I said, "Why are only these four standing up, and not the rest?"

One girl waved her hand excitedly. "Ooh! I know!" she cried. "Because you told us to!"

True dat!

You're wearing out my joie de vie

Little H, who looks to be repeating kindergarten next year if the school has anything to say about it, threw a pen at M2's neck just before recess. She wasn't hurt. When I asked him about it, he did what he does every single time his behavior is commented on --- "Well she" or "Well he did" and blah blah blah. The kid has no sense of accountability. And yes, many five-year-olds do.

So we went out to recess but he and I had a little chat on the bench. He said that M2 wouldn't get out of his way, whatever that means --- were they in a corridor? (By the way, it's really appalling how much goes on in my room that I don't notice. I try hard to be with-it and everywhere at once, but clearly I'm missing a lot.) Well, anyway, so I tried role playing with him. "I'm M2," I said. "Ask me to get out of my way."

"Get out of my way," he mumbled in his squeaky little baby voice.

"No!" I said.

H shook his head. "She didn't say no. She just 'tood there."

After shouting, "Look, numbskull, we're not re-enacting the verbatim court record here! This is an exercise! Don't you have any notion of the abstract?" in my head, I said, "Okay, I'll just stand here." So I folded my arms and made a hmmph noise, like M2 does when she's being sassy.

There was a long pause.

I broke character. "Uh, H. What are you going to do? You asked, but M2 isn't getting out of your way. What do you say? What do you do?"

He furrowed his brow, clearly at a loss. Then he brightened. "T'row the pen the other way so it doesn't hit anyone!"

Yes. Because that will help.

I trust I'll end up sleeping cradled in my doom

Say, this is turning into a "Kids Say the Stupidest Things" blog 24/7, but that's because I'm Distracted right now. Only time for quick posts. But that will change, surely.

Anyway, remember when I said to W1, "What are we adding?" and he said (correctly but not relevantly) "Numbers?" Well, a similar thing happened today. Talking to M1, a girl who is not quite as desperately in need of a shopping spree at the Clue Store as W1 is, I stressed the importance of putting spaces between the words.

"See, here," I said helpfully, "because I told you to, you put a space after this first word, but then after I went away you didn't put any more spaces in. But spaces need to go after every word. Not just after the first word, but after every word. Now, where do the spaces go?"

Little M1 took a breath, as she does when she's not quite sure what's going on, but plunged right on: "They go on the paper."

Man, I love my job.

Where another man's life might begin, that's exactly where mine ends

I was informed today by a child that our president was "taking everyone's money away and is going to make them into hobos."

(Wait, hobos? Consarn it! All riled up on giggle juice, I'll wager! Fetch the railroad bulls and march 'em off to the hoosegow!)

Another teacher said to this boy, "I'll bet your parents watch Fox news."

He said immediately and with gusto, "Yeah! It's so boring!"

Man, I know people enjoy sacrificing reason on the altar of righteousness and greed, but do they have to tell their kids about it?

***

Oh, and also today a boy looked at my lunch bag and said, "That lunch box sure has a long strap."

I said, "Yes, it does."

He replied, "Let's go ahead and call it a purse."

Meme from Electronic Cerebrectomy

Where I got it

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you.

I have no idea and I don't care.

2. Where was your first kiss?

By the pool at Muffin's house, with the usual gang I hang out with 22 years later, minus a couple who have become lost to us over the years, including the girl in question: a whiplash-inducing buxom blonde with a sultry smile I remember to this day. For whatever reason, ugly scrawny nerdy me attracted the hot young ladies back then. It was doubtless my rapier wit. Here's my thoughts on the subject, from October 2006.

3. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? If yes, why?

Um... not in anger. Ahem. Not that I think women are utterly sacred and untouchable when it comes to physical violence --- there are certainly a lot of loudmouthed nasty pieces of female work who probably should have been backhanded a few times in their developing years, and you can see some of them on reality TV these days --- but mostly that Shouldn't Be Done.

4. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? When?

Probably, because I don't have shame about that kind of thing, but don't remember any specific occasions. I have a horrible voice and no sense of pitch, key, or rhythm. People wince even when I attempt something as simple as "Happy Birthday." But I don't care. If I feel like singing, I'll belt one out, dammit!

5. What's the first thing you notice about your preferred sex?

Eyes. Big wide eyes kill me. Then mouth. Then what comes out of it.

6. What really turns you off?

Lack of empathy.

7. What is your biggest mistake?

I think I've answered this in more than one meme. Here's a good example of the kind of emo bullshit I tend to start spouting when forced to think about such things.

8. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?

Oh my, yes! I used to slash my arms and face with a knife. The cool kids call it "cutting" these days.

9. Say something totally random about yourself.

Here's an odd thing --- my digital camera has gone wonky and only takes pictures in the dark. At night or in a dimly lit bowling alley, the pictures are fine. But in the day, indoors with or without flash, they come out all washed with light and staticky horizontal lines and whatnot. It's not condensation on the lens, or the batteries, or anything. I've messed with the settings in an exhaustive array of combinations, with no luck. Oh, and here's the truly weird part: the video setting still works perfectly no matter what the light. Just not the photos. So obviously there's something wrong with the shutter exposing too much light or something? Oh, I don't know what I'm talking about. But you have to admit that was random.

10. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?

As mentioned here (proving there is nothing new under the e-sun), various sources of questionable repute have said I resemble Christopher Reeve, Tobey Maguire, and Tony Curtis. Usually these are older ladies saying these things, women whom one can only assume are in desperate need for cataract surgery.

11. Do you still watch kiddie movies or TV shows?

Sure. I own The Incredibles and The Jungle Book. I thought Toy Story 2 was one of the top 100 movies of all time. And it wasn't so long ago I was watching "Justice League Unlimited" on DVD. The other day, a woman said defensively to me as I was talking about the wonderful book The Phantom Tollbooth (which she'd never heard of, naturally), "I don't read children's books." I could only reply, "How sad for you."

That's it for me, as it's getting late, I have recommendations to write, and I don't have good answers for the rest of it.

Many times we've shared our thoughts

Yesterday, dinner at a nice Mexican place with the usual crowd. Thirteen people including kids --- three couples, two kids each, and me.

Today, with crowd but sans kids, bowling at an obscenely "hip" and "trendy" bowling alley that blares the latest hip hop and empty bubblegum pop videos at the end of the lane, behind the pins (how is that helping?) and has a full bar and black lights that make your vodka look blue and your yellow shirt look white. I guess it sounds kinda fun when I write it down like that. Friar and Palfrey. T-Bone and Courtney. Muffin and her husband. Me.

It's nice I have friends. But not sure about the seventh wheel part.

It's sweeter than the ripple wine

The other day the Spanish teacher told the kids she'd been out because of an operation (she'd gotten her appendix out in an emergency procedure a few days before). This prompted R to share that his mother has ovarian cancer --- he knows all about it, including the fact that she can't have any more children --- which somehow led to H gleefully proclaiming, "I love to feel my mommy's boobies!"

That's where I stepped in and asked, "Kids, have you ever heard of the phrase T.M.I.?"

***

This morning, during the circle time, E asked if she could take her shirt off because she was hot in the room (she was wearing a spaghetti strap top underneath). "I guess," I said complainingly, "but I'm hot too, and you don't see me taking off my shirt."

She giggled. "No! 'Cause then we would see your boobies!"

Say, why do they all call them "boobies," anyway? And why do they think I have them?

Take a look now at what your boy has done

I was trying to guide W1 through a story problem today. This kid, although a decent reader and apparently bright in several ways, is sporadically clueless. Everyone else groks what's going on, even my youngest little whiner, H. But this kid, who can read the thing himself, is just lost. The problem says A has 4 blocks and B has 3 blocks. How many all together? I remind him the key words that make this an addition problem. I help him work this through the number line. I direct his drawing of four blocks of one color and, separated by a gap, three of another. And then we get to the part where he writes the number sentence, and he acts as though he just woke up, in his hermetically sealed pod, which arrived from Alpha Centauri a thousand years ago.

He writes, "5 + 4 = 3." I suppress the urge to kill and read through the problem with him, again. Recalling, of course, that he can read it himself. I get him to point out the numbers that the problem gives. "Where'd you get five from?!" I screech at him in my head. I trace the number line activity. "See? We start at four and add three. Three jumps on the line. So the numbers in this problem are four and three. Four blocks, and three blocks." I show him the picture that he drew. I look at him, and he nods. "So..." I prompt through gritted teeth, "what are we adding?"

"Numbers," he mumbles.

After throttling him mentally, I go over it again. Finally, he has it. he writes the equation.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Another math fact pounded unwillingly into the blunted brain of a blockhead.

Until it's time to write the answer in tally marks. And W1 puts down twenty-five of them.

My independence seems to vanish in the haze

My talented and lovely assistant, pregnant with her second child, is almost certainly not going to be back next year. This means (as long I'm coming back, but hey, who knows, right?) I will get to help interview and choose a new one. But... but... Who will order food for me and fax stupid forms so I don't have to go upstairs and uncomplainingly pour the juice while I lord it over the kids? The next person might want to grow in their new job and actually have some kind of teaching time!

If this does come to pass, I will very much miss her. She puts up with my bizarre behavior and we complement each other very well (both of us being pretty laid back and uninterested in sweating the small stuff). She's going to have a girl, and being the tomboy that she is, told me, "I hope she'll be bald for two years so I don't have to do any hair stuff." So you can see how she and I kind of fit together in this school of gorgeous, shoes-obsessed fashion plates.

I tie myself below the deck

Today I missed almost all of our after-school faculty meeting because carpool came and went, and B was still in the room. "Who's picking you up today?" I asked. "I don't know" she said in her tiny, precise little voice.

We waited a bit, I took her down to the office, hung around until some other late pick-ups had left, then we headed back to the room to contact somebody. I tried to reach her mother's cell phone --- which B helpfully recited, along with her father's --- but I couldn't get through. I said, "I'll try your father," and started dialing.

"My father is at China" said B in her tiny voice.

I broke off and looked for her home number. I reached her mother, who speaks English passably. "Hello, J," I said. "B is still here!" Her mother said, "It Tuesday. She has Yoga class in, ah, gym." I thanked her and hung up.

I looked at B, astonished. "Why didn't you tell me that?!" I thundered.

She put a finger in her mouth and grinned mischievously. "Tee hee," she giggled. She knew all the time she had an after-school activity. She just didn't want to go! She'd rather have hung around watching me make small talk and call people. Kids are such sneaks.

I caught the last ten minutes of the meeting and hit the snacks. I saw the Head, and he greeted me with an amiable, "Oh, you still work here?" I found out later that I'd also totally forgotten about a meeting of the Environmental Awareness team I'm on. Whoops!

This was made more ominous by his final announcement of the meeting, which was that teacher contracts will be postponed until returning students have all be accounted for. "It's just prudent, in this economy, to make sure the numbers are three," he said. Then, not quite so reassuringly, "I can't promise that everyone will be guaranteed a spot, or that nothing unfortunate will happen."

Hey! What? Huh? Wow!

Well, actually, I feel as secure as an insecure fellow like me can feel about this job, but it's the first time I've head anyone at Prestigious talk like that.

Here he comes with a green one once again

Today at school R wanted to use the Rubik's cube. He couldn't remember the name of it, and hemmed and hawed until finally he said, "Mr. Chance, can I play with the... uh... Mucus Block?"

Why isn't our new puzzle toy selling well? There are quintillions of combinations! Imagine the endless possibilities! So why aren't bright kids picking up a brightly-colored, challenging Mucus Block®?

Newbery XIII - 1929

Welcome to the eighth installment of what is unquestionably the Internet's finest collection of all the Newbery winners reviewed in chronological order.

The year was 1929. In October, a stock market crash marked the beginning of a global depression. Canada's high court ruled, in what most jurists regard as a moment of sheer lunacy, that women legally counted as people. And the first Academy Awards were handed out, to the interest of hardly anyone outside of Hollywood.

Meanwhile, the ALA's choice of best juvenile book was The Trumpeter Of Krakow, by Eric P. Kelly. In keeping with the Association's love for stories from far-flung lands and eras, they chose one set in Poland, 1461. The main character is one Joseph Charnetski, a fifteen-year-old, who travels with his family to Krakow after their home and fields in the Ukraine are destroyed. And yes, he becomes the trumpeter of the title. Oops, spoiler.

The family befriends a wise scholar and goes to live in the house of an alchemist and his daughter. Joseph becomes a watchman in the Church of Our Lady Mary. In the tower there, he plays on the hour the Heynal, a theme that is traditionally broken off in mid-note out of respect for a brave Polish lad who was killed by an arrow while playing it as Tartars advanced. (Click on that Wikipedia link for an interesting side note to this ancient legend, which may not be one at all.) The family is shadowed and accosted several times by a mysterious rogue, who turns out to be the dreaded Ukrainian warlord whose men originally drove them from their home and is out to steal a priceless treasure which, to Joseph's surprise, his father is guarding for the king.

This is a fine historical adventure, written in a clear but highly literate style, full of drama and suspense. Krakow is also made central to the story, as Kelly lovingly details its various buildings and streets. Nor is this a story that could be transplanted to another time, as lesser historical tales can be; alchemy plays a great role in this book, as part of the drama stems from Kreutz, the alchemist, and his attempts to find the secret of transmuting base metals to gold. It's fun to read, and the brisk pacing and suspense keep the pages turning --- a perfect young adult adventure story.

Recommended for adults: Yes.

Recommended for children: Yes.

Loaded 19

Hypotheticals: If you had to run a marathon, how many miles do you think you could last?
If I had to actually run? Probably one before I died. I could walk it, but it would take a while.

Anything Goes: What is life's greatest mystery?
Why women enjoy the company of men who treat them like dirt without seeming to offer anything to compensate for it.

No-Brainers: What is your favorite flower?
See number 47 here.

Personals: What do you generally sleep in at night?
When it's cold, a long john type shirt and flannel pants. When it's hot, I go commando, baby!

What becomes of the broken hearted?

In late December, flatulent ass Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a hospital in Hawaii following severe chest pains. Disregarding all the prayers of the righteous, God did not strike him down in agony. Apparently, they found nothing wrong with him, and now he's fine. Fine enough to spout the following fatuous crap: "Based on what happened here to me, I don't think there's one thing wrong with the American healthcare system. It is working just fine, just dandy."

Wow, really? The system worked for a famous, white, male, multi-millionaire conservative? That's amazing! It must therefore also work for black welfare moms, college students, underemployed single mothers, and minimum wage-earning heads of families! That's logic! QED, bitches, and check mate!

Seriously, why have the people not risen up as one to slay this menace to all that is good and holy?

By the way, anyone remember that around the same time, conservative apologist Kevin Madden went on the airwaves to make himself look ridiculous with this asinine claptrap: "You have to also remember the fact that the president being on vacation in Hawaii, it’s much different than being in Texas. Hawaii to many Americans seems like a foreign place."

Oopsie! It's a state, and apparently even evil lying conservative media whores go there to relax! Not, unfortunately, to die.

I saw a man driving a BMW convertible with a bumper sticker that read: "Don't spread my wealth. Spread my work ethic!" Why, yes, the driver was white, how did you guess? Perhaps it was this tidbit from the Bureau of Labor: "More than half of black males between the ages of 16 and 19 are unemployed. And that's only counting those seeking work. Economists say legions of other young black men — nobody knows how many — have given up looking."

I really wanted to smash his car with a cinderblock and leave it to break down at night in the poorest neighborhood of the city, so all those lazy black men who just aren't working hard enough, darn it, could enjoy the wisdom of his bumper sticker.

Yep, I'm starting the New Year with a lot of Buddhist-like serenity and good karma.

Where do we go from here and what did you do with the directions?

After school we had a meeting about the writing curriculum. Ms. Ice Queen, a first grade teacher who was the leader of the group (I had been installed as co-leader), suddenly quit the group without explanation, at least to the rest of the faculty. So now I'm the main leader. I'm not the type who likes to sit around analyzing where we've been and where we're going and whether that's the way we want to go --- at least not for very long. Those are necessary things to consider, but at some point, I want action to be taken. For example, if we're examining our expectations to see if they're appropriate, consistent, and form some kind of continuum, eventually we'll need to stop examining and start pruning, streamlining, and inserting new ideas.

So, with very short notice, this afternoon I tried to pick up where Icy left off, and asked for input and volunteers to complete some tasks. But man, teachers can be such a contrary, heel-dragging bunch, especially at this school. They were questioning why we needed to do things, and whether it wouldn't be redundant with all the documentation we already have, and so on.

I wanted to say, "Look, jerks, you're right, okay? You know and I know all this is just window dressing, to make us keep our minds on our work, and so the administration can say we revamp the curriculum frequently. We're not meant to move mountains here. So how about just shutting up and writing out the extremely brief page I'm asking for so we can go the hell home." Of course I didn't. Eventually, a couple of people said they'd write the drafts, and I said I'd write the mission statement of writing philosophy, and we called it a day. I'd like to say that I adjourned the meeting, but actually people just started standing up and walking away. I have no power, and garner no respect.

***

After the meeting I picked up some Asian take out food for five and brought it to R's house. His mother has ovarian and carcinoid cancer and may not recover, though she's in treatment. I guess that puts my spine herpes, vertebrae misalignment, heart troubles and neck fungus in a relative light; they're not (as yet) fatal --- though Ganesh on the great greasy Ganges, this zona itches like a mofo. Arrrrgh! Scratchscratchscratch ointment medicine arggh

***

Hey, how come at work I can be patient as Job and Buddha, charming and funny with the kids all day, and then at that one single moment when I've reached my limit, at the fifteenth useless petty transgression, and I call out to a troublesome boy in a clearly fed-up tone --- that's the very moment an admin walks by?

Because there is no why. That's why.

I went to the doctor and the doctor said Friend, this should be the middle but it could be the end

Hey, guess what's not fun? Having little crappy things wrong with your health.

First there was the disgusting ringworm, a condition that has recurred (in much milder form) off and on since May. I'm still getting over a bout of bronchitis I contracted in early December. Then there was the neck pain thing which sent me to a chiropractor. I sleep on a memory foam pillow now with neck support, because my neck vertebrae bend out the wrong way.

And now I have the goddamn shingles, or as I like to call it, spinal herpes. (Shingles is some kind of residual chicken pox virus that lives in your spine and decides to give you a nasty rash thirty years later, apparently.) Let me tell you what that's like: weirdly tingly, slightly painful, uncomfortably itchy, extremely unappealing visually. Also: may indicate increased risk of cancer! Isn't the panoply of nature's creation a wonderful thing?

I'm currently taking a shedload of medication, including digitalis for tachycardia, prescription cough drops, Vicodin (which I don't need, but might later?), and two drugs to combat the zona breakout. I have ceased taking Prozac and some other drug meant to lower my blood pressure, which is fine right now on its own. Man, I don't even like taking any medication.

This is perhaps the consequences of seeing the doctor approximately zero times from the age of 23 to 32 or so. I can feel the cold grasp of Grandfather Death already.

Laugh along even though they're laughing at you

So there are a number of brief, on-the-spot games I play with the kids between instruction or projects. We play a variety of hangman, a sort of game like Mastermind except with words, four-in-a-row team tic tac toe, equation solving tic tac toe, and so on.

One of these games is What Do They Have in Common; in this game I ask several kids to stand up, and the class takes turns trying to guess what characteristic belongs to that group, and only that group. The simplest example of this would be: all the girls stand up. A slightly harder example is: asking the kids in striped shirts to stand up. A very hard example might be: have the kids whose names begin with vowels stand up.

In general, kindergarten kids are not very good at this game. The first day I introduced the game, after the more obvious boys/girls and hair color examples didn't go exactly smoothly, I had my assistant and I stand up and all the kids sit. They had a very hard time coming to conclusion that what we had in common and they didn't was "adulthood" or "are teachers" or anything of that kind.

The kids will excitedly and erroneously proclaim the current round's characteristic to be the same as the previous, even when it is clearly not ("no, not all the girls are standing up this time, so that can't be it..."). They will attempt to conflate it with patterns ("there's a girl, and a boy with shoelaces, then a girl, and boy without shoelaces"), which is pretty much the opposite of the idea. They are also largely incapable of figuring out abstract common themes, such as "everyone standing has a double letter in their name." And, finally, when asked to come up with their own characteristics to form a group, usually miss one person who fits the condition, or put in an extraneous one ("A2 is standing up, but he isn't wearing any buttons!").

In short, it's great fun. They're getting better at it. And to be fair, it's a pretty hard game. Today I could not figure out a couple of the characteristics that the kids thought of themselves (everyone with collars, with brown eyes). On the other hand, one of the kids standing up in the former game was not actually wearing a collar. So that made it a bit tougher.

So but anyhow this morning I had the three kids whose names end in Y stand up. There were a couple of desultory guesses, then A3 raised her hand eagerly. "What do you think these three classmates have in common?" I asked her.

"They're all very slow in finishing their work!" she said gleefully.

Cue: Assistant and I convulsing with laughter, amid faux-horrified protests at the idea.

To lamely try to justify for what it is, a lack of drive

Let's see, what have I been up to, then? Not much. Earlier this year, A4's mother stirred up a little maelstrom in a mailbag when she met with me, the Head, the Vice Head, and Ms. Counselor because of the "bullying" she claimed A4 was getting at the hands of other children in my class. She said he was coming home with bruises and was being savagely beaten for no reason. When extended observation by everyone and his brother revealed that nothing of the sort was happening and this was communicated to her, A4's mother told Ms. Counselor that she believed her child's story over any adult's. The Head told me later that I won the prize for having the kookiest parent in the school this year. Then just as suddenly as it began it was over, as A4's mother decided everything was groovy again.

I wrote six recommendations last week for kids whose parents wanted them to go bigger better even more respected private schools (well, and one that wanted to go to a cheaper school). The Vice Head gave us her perennial advice ("don't gush") and I toned everything down a bit, being the corporate sellout that I am.

As I've whined about before, more than once, I've been dragooned into Doing Stuff beyond what I feel is the acceptable call of duty. Now I'm apparently leading some kind of writing curriculum review team. Must I? Curse this effortless eloquence!

Newbery VII

When we last looked in on the venerable Newberys, the winner was the lovable, racist Smoky the Cowhorse.

In 1928, the Newbery Committee in all its wisdom chose as the best children's book of the year Gay-Neck: The Story Of a Pigeon, by Indian-born author Dhan Gopal Mukerji. This would prove to future generations of children to be a problematic choice for two reasons. One, it is called Gay-Neck, and that's just not something you can live down anymore. Two, it is the story of a pigeon.

The plot begins in the early 1900s, with a young Indian boy who raises carrier pigeons. The titular Gay-Neck, named for his colorful neck plumage, is the finest, able to outfly eagles and hawks. When WWI breaks out, Gay-Neck is used as a messenger pigeon under the boy’s friend, Ghond the hunter. The bird finds he must dodge the screaming mechanical eagles (planes) and barking dogs (machine guns) that try to destroy him.

During the course of the war, both the pigeon and Ghond are wounded, and both develop a form of traumatic disorder. So they travel to the lamaseries in the Himalayas to meditate and overcome their fear. The story is told mostly from the boy’s point of view, but occasionally Gay-Neck narrates when the bird is alone, and Ghond is also given his view, during the most harrowing battle. It is a story of a pigeon, in a strict sense, but the plot is really only the steed that the message rides, so to speak.

Mukerji's main concern is promoting Buddhist concerns of peace, courage, and wisdom. Prayers and meditations on overcoming fear are not only included, they're the main lesson of the story – "No beast of prey can kill his victim without frightening him first," and "each being that lives is a reservoir of infinite courage." I like that second one, by the way. Trying saying it to yourself. Go on. I'll wait.

Rarely does a children’s book manage to tread such deep waters without looking ridiculous, but Mukerji manages to imbue his little tale with an enormous amount of inspiration and wisdom.

Recommended for children: Well... oh dear. It's a good book, and kids love animal stories. But, see, it's called "Gay-Neck."

Recommeded for adults: Yes.

Looking back through time you know it's clear that I've been blind

Ha ha! Won't it be funny, after yesterday's long melodramatic emo post, I suddenly stop blogging again?

Well, one more day, perhaps.

So this morning I went to the chiropractor. Second visit of the week, and of my life. I woke up a couple weeks back with some neck pain that never went away, so now this. I know some people think of chiropractors as nothing short of miracle workers and some think they're dangerous quacks. I've always been a bit leery, myself, but these guys seem very capable and calm and assured. I won't say I'm utterly healed, but over the last few days the pain has lessened and mobility has increased. Hell, the deep muscle massage and heated vibrating chairs by themselves are practically worth the price of admission, anyway. I'm not so much a fan of having my bones crack audibly while some guy pushes my body parts in different directions, but I understand that my neck is in a funny shape, and this seems to help.

And remember how inaction breeds despair and all that? Say yes more; nay, even create opportunities to say yes to? Well, it's been less than twenty-four hours since I wrote that and I already turned down an invitation to dinner... but it was just Friar and his kids and Muffin and her kids, and I just ate with them on New Year's Eve, and anyhow the Green Margarita is a truly disgusting restaurant. Greasy orange cheese and all that, the worst excesses of Tex-Mex and none of the health benefits.

I've been eating no land-based meat, except on Saturdays, for about three months now. I don't really feel any different, but I'm confident that my blood pressure and arteries are thanking me.

***

In Buddhist metta practice, traditionally one trains oneself to cultivate loving goodwill to everyone by starting first with oneself, moving on to a friend or loved one, then a person whom one feels neutral toward, then someone one has bad feelings for, and so on in widening concentric circles until one feels love for the universe. So, basically, inward to outward. I assume that this is meant to be from easiest to hardest --- after all, it's easier to feel love for your good friend than for your rarely-seen next door neighbor, and easier to love that neighbor than the creep who spreads rumors about you at the office.

But what about those of us who stumble at the starting block? Love me first? The whole damn point of trying to make myself serene is that I'm not happy with myself in the first place. I think I'd better start with thinking good thoughts about Friar and his family, and save myself for about third in line.

Better can't make your life better

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

Okay. So. Yeah.

This is going to be one of those lengthy, meandering, almost-but-not-quite getting to a point posts, so watch out, Future Self. Prepare to smirk.

Yeah, I went back to blogging after taking the summer off, then instantly dropped it again. And although that hasn't exactly left a gaping void in my life that begs to be filled, it's something that ought to be remedied.

Why? Well, certainly in large part the only answer to that seems to be Yes, why? But there's something to it.

When you're depressive like I am, certain things Matter. Actually, no. It's not so much that they --- those things --- matter as that they indicate or represent something that matters. People often make these obsessive little pledges to themselves, especially on New Year's Day, which by no coincidence whatever this is. And whether it's, for example, trying do 20 minutes of elliptical three times a week or logging the mileage and gas costs of your new car or opening bills the day you get them or not drinking soda or blogging about your life every day, it's usually some kind of a connection to the world. Even in the case of avoidance, like quitting smoking or eating meat or what have you, the idea is to replace that bad habit with a better one --- viz., one that builds a better relationship between you and your environment.

You know, I used to be more eloquent. Or maybe things just sound better in my head.

Well but and so what I'm trying to get at is that these obsessive little pledges are, if not meaningful in themselves, indicative of meaning. When a depressive like me drops these habits made with the best of intentions to keep up good connections --- well, sometimes it's because those things were time-consuming and silly and served their brief purpose (like, who needs to log their new car's mileage on a regular basis?). But sometimes the letting go of these ostensibly insignificant things is a symptom. A symptom of an unhealthy disassociation.

To normal gregarious social butterflies, the following may seem an absurd statement, but for some people there really is a slope from quitting blogging (goodbye, introspection) to dropping healthy eating habits (I'm not talking about my eating on the Internet anymore, so who cares?) to cutting out all social activity and retreating almost entirely into the life of a recluse (why should I go out? My mind and body are mush). This is not imaginary. This is not a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is self-destruction through indifference and it is real.

All of which is a very loquacious way of saying that I'd better blog daily again, dammit. It's constructive. Doing is better than not doing. Gnōthi seauton and all that.

***

Right, so that was awkward! Quick, change the subject! What are your New Year's resolutions, Chance?

Actually, Chance, I never make any New Year's resolutions. Whenever I've been inspired to better myself, I've always been the type that tends more toward "Do it now!" instead of "Wait until some arbitrary moment infused with artificial importance!" However, I hope that I'll live a good story this year. And I would like to think about some of the things I need in my life. Maybe three of them.

One thing I need back in my life -- and this will sound the absurdest of all, but I'll plow on --- is Zen. I need my Zen back. Like most liberal arts college students, I studied Zen a bit and because enamored with some of its teachings. I think my Zen got leaked out of me after my ex-wife cheated on me while studying to be a Buddhist priest. Yes, really. Anyway, I think somewhere I lost a certain serenity, and I need it back. Not only was it better for my mental health, I think it made me a more appealing soul. No one likes an uptight snark addict. Nam myoho renge kyo, people. Let's get metta-physical.

But I must also face facts and admit that while I've lived an aleatory sort of existence, the fatalistic life has not necessarily been good to me. Inaction breeds despair. Why have I had so many shitty relationships? Because they chose me, and I shrugged and accepted it. I didn't actively choose them --- or, perhaps more accurately, I lacked the will to deny them. I am far too old and sedentary and unpopular to let things happen anymore. I need not just to say yes more, but to go and find those opportunities to say yes to. That can mean something as little as answering the phone more often.

Finally, you know what I need more of in my life? Relationships that aren't doomed.

The funny circus from his head

First day of school with the kids! Um... yay?

They seem like a good group. The day went pretty much exactly like last year's.

The cast:

• A1, boy, 5. Clever, good reader, knows a few French words, has a sly mischievous look about him. Is half-Asian.
• A2, boy, 6. Son of the ultra-involved Sikh parents. Bookish and smart. Seems affable and sweet, not at all the competitive, self-absorbed kid his parents described at the conference.
• A3, girl, 5. Seems sharp. Loves art.
• A4, boy, 6. The second-loudest kid in the room, but not aggressive, just playful. Mother is from South America. She says he can add fractions and subtract two-digit numbers already. So far I'm impressed with his volume.
  
• B, girl, 5. Daughter of first-generation immigrants. Her mother spoke English fairly well at our meeting, but not quite fluently enough for total communication. B herself spoke perhaps three words in total today, all of them monosyllabic answers drawn very reluctantly from her by me insisting on a reply.
• C, boy, 5. A smart fellow, perhaps has Asperger's. Talks as if someone's constantly adjusting his pitch and playback speed.
  
• G, girl, 5. Youngest in the class, turned five just a few days ago. Very sweet. Excellent artist.
  
• H, boy, 5. Second-youngest in the class. Absolutely goes nuts for superheroes (so we have something to talk about). Very poor motor skills, almost no letter-sound correspondence, not strong enough to close the hole punch. I may have to earn my pay with this little guy.
• K1, girl, 5. One of two black girls in the room. Almost zero literacy skills. Has a reputation for being sassy and defiant, but this hasn't emerged yet. It may never, Ganesh willing.
• K2, girl, 5. Big cheeks. Loves animals. Good reader.
• M1, girl, 5. Super cute! Loves art.
  
• M2, girl, 5. Don't know her ethnic heritage but she's a sort of mocha color. Also has a reputation for being sassy. Poor writing.
  
• R, boy, 5. Just the sweetest, most helpful little ball of energy you ever saw. His mother has possibly terminal cancer. Is terrific at invented spelling.
  
• T, girl, 5. The second black girl in the class. A terrific reader. Fell asleep in her chair at the end of the day.
• W1, boy, 5. Nice kid, kinda loud, loves Legos. All I really know about him so far is his mother is really, really hot. Don't judge me!
  
• W2, boy, 6. Kept to himself, loves to cut and glue paper creations. Very well spoken and seems to read fairly fluently.
• Z, boy, 5. The loudest kid in the class. Ebullient and chipper and loud, but showed streaks of whiny defeatism already. Very poor writing skills.
  

They're a fun, happy, creative bunch, and --- here's hoping --- I don't sense any aggression in the group as I did with a couple of last year's boys. I feel like the big difference between this and my former class --- and I know it's only been one day, so I may be wrong --- are that this class has fewer kids with advanced reading and writing skills, and some with almost no phonetic awareness. Well, down the road we go, then.

***

After school, Ms. N, Ms. Counselor, and I put on a little skit we'd prepared at the behest of the Administration about the importance of faculty and staff donating to the school fund. We opened with me giving a few amusingly inappropriate ideas on how to stir up involvement (mostly I favored punching), then we narrated a PowerPoint with some very humorous photos, taken by the development office, that illustrated our ideas. Ms. N and I had been picked for this project because of last year's presentation on our conference, which we mistakenly made creative and engaging, so now we're the go-to people for in-house talks.

And then we all got ice cream floats! It was a cibarious celebration.

Now he's ready to walk a path that is new and he can't turn back

Second day of parent conferences. Overall I'm very sanguine about the State of Parental Affairs this year. They seem like a bright, easy-going bunch who aren't (too) fazed by my rather off-kilter manner, speech, humor, and appearance. (Yes, I kind of cultivate the image.)

The last parent to arrive (rescheduled, having forgotten about her original meeting yesterday until I called her about it) came in looking for all the world like an African tribeswoman in a dashiki, complete with tiny wide-eyed baby (recently acquired from CPS, she told us without volunteering any further information) on her voluminous hip. I asked her, as I had all the parents, where her daughter was in reading, and she replied, "I don't know." She honestly had no idea how well, or indeed if, her child could read. Later she asked me what she could do at home to help her daughter's math skills. I asked her to tell me about what level her daughter was. "I don't know," she said again. Oh dear. I said I wouldn't be able to advise her on anything until I figured out what skills her child had.

Although I didn't get the younger brother of the girl from Mr. C's class whose father is French, I did get two other kids who have fathers who can speak French and want their kids to learn. That's good, as I've always liked teaching simple French phrases to kids.

Also, I got some supplemental insurance. We already have health and dental paid, but I got a cancer policy (lots of tumors in my family) and some kind of heart attack policy which I'm not at all sure I actually need, since despite my congenital heart condition I'm at no more of a risk for heart attack than anyone else my age and level of activity. What I'm at risk for is heart failure, which is a totally different fish. Oh well. I'll probably die of a stroke now anyway.

Incredibly tired. Not used to this frenetic pace.

Walk on eggshells on my old stomping ground

First day of parent conferences.

I met half my 18 kids' parents. One boy's parents are a couple of self-described nerds (the father designs video games for a living, their dog is named after a mathematician, and their son's middle name is that of a famous scientist). Another boy's mother has possibly fatal cancer (she looked good, but obviously thin and weak, and discussed her illness with humor and openness); there's also a supportive stepfather and an absent father in his life. Most of the parents were effusive and charming and appeared happy to have me as their child's teacher.

I think there may be problems with two sets of parents: one is the Sikh family I met Friday, who are stereotypically pushy helicopter parents and whose perfectionist neuroses are being projected into their poor kid. The second is another new boy's South American-born mother, whose relentless officiousness during our brief interview made the Indian couple seem like laid-back, trusting hippie cats.

Sunday Warbooks: Why the Allies Won

A review of Why the Allies Won, by Richard Overy.

Just as the title indicates, this is a thorough examination of how WWII --- the outcome of which was decidedly uncertain before late 1943 or so --- ended the way it did. Overy is a masterful and convincing historian, who over the course of 330 pages lays out a cogent argument based on everything from economy and materiel production to the warped philosophy of the Axis powers.

It's impossible to distill the mass of fascinating information into a few paragraphs, but there are a few main points that especially ring true. The first is, of course, the industrial production of the USA and USSR, unmatched by any of the Axis powers. Overy argues that America’s capitalist society and the Soviet centralized dictatorship were each in their own way ideally suited to maximize their vast resources. In contrast, Hitler's less focused, more cutthroat dictatorship failed to make the most of Germany's limited resources. A telling example is when Hitler’s armies took Soviet oil fields, but then had no engineers to make the oil available to Germany, so it made no discernible change in their production.

Overy further argues that the Allied powers made simple, reliable, mass-produced weapons, and kept a healthy ratio of mechanics on hand. The opposite was true of the Germany industrial complex, which was fixated on ever-newer technologies, so obsolescence and difficulty of repair became issues as the war progressed. Overy concludes that even Germany's much-vaunted missile program, which was inarguably years ahead of anything the Allies had, was "a lost cause" for these reasons: impressive, yes, but not a war-winner.

The second main theme is the rapid learning curve of the allied powers, who learned from their many early defeats and focused intently on producing only what was needed to win. The Germans and Japanese, by contrast, has a very slow learning curve, and coasted on early victories, believing that their militaristic will-to-power philosophy made victory a foregone conclusion. This learning curve extended to every facet of the war --- improvements in bombing, defense, codes, and so on ensured the Allies’ early losses were not often repeated.

The final main theme that runs through the whole book, though it's not made as explicit as the others, is the mindset of the various leaders. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin had many philosophical and strategical differences, but were able to work in lock step for the single goal of destroying Nazism utterly. Hitler had no such restraint, unable to maintain even the farce of an alliance with Stalin until the war in the west had been concluded. Stalin, for all his faults, promoted reliable men, wanted to hear the unvarnished truth about how the war was progressing, and allowed himself to be overruled when it came to important strategic decisions. Hitler, famously, removed officers who told him bad news, even if it was true, and obsessively insisted on micro-managing the war (sounds like Bush and Rumsfeld!), with a deleterious result for Germany's chances for victory.

Perhaps the most interesting example of how much Hitler's self-supposed strategic genius hurt Germany was Hitler's insistence on treating the Normandy landings lightly, thinking they were only a ruse, until it was far too late and Patton had already swept over half of France. Historical events like this always give rise to their hypothetical counterparts: what if Hitler had allowed Rommel and others to fight the war they wanted to? The modern Anglo-American mind reels at the horror.

In all, this is an inexhaustibly fascinating book, one sure to promote argument among WWII buffs for its calm, reasoned analysis and sometimes unexpected conclusions.

***

Sunday warbooks scoreboard:

Greco-Persian wars: 2
WWI: 2
WWII: 6 <----winning big, like the Allies in late 1945
Vietnam: 2
Iraq wars: 2
Afghanistan war: 1
General warfare: 2

Got holes in my socks, they match the ones that I got in my feet

The other day friend of the Sutler Churlita wrote a great timely post about her memories of her first day of kindergarten. I have no memory of my own first day, even though I'm (barely) younger than Churlita is. Indeed, I have only vague memories of the entire era, and some of them may be inadvertently conflated with those of earlier or younger years, as well. I just don't know.

Around that time my teacher was called Miss Cockerell, and some kids out of a sense of not malevolent silliness called her "Miss Cockroach" behind her back. We were blissfully unaware of the ruder words her name might have conjured up in, say middle school students. I don't remember any other teacher's names until fifth grade or so. I had a small group of friends both boys and girls, as I have all my life, and didn't interact much with outside that group. I remember exactly two students' names from those times (and exactly two more from all other years until high school). For a reason that now utterly escapes me, we referred to mail delivery trucks as "cracker boxes," and called out dibs on XYZ amount of crackers ("I got a thousand crackers!") if we saw one first.

Kids are nuts, man.

***

Anyway, tonight I went out to Hangout II with the old gang: Friar, Muffin, T-Bone, Courtney, and Auric. Oh, and Mr. Hangout came out with us too. We heard a very good local country band, the members of whom I'm passing acquaintances with. Muffin is now stomach-extendingly pregnant, despite being a very tiny woman everywhere else. She looks like an elf with a beach ball in her dress.

A passing girl said to another one as we sat and drank, "That's Auric! He's the lead singer of Auric's Band!" I turned to her and said, "No, it's not. He gets that all the time. Don't you, Fred?" But I'm not sure she was convinced by my clever artifice.

Kid, stay and snip your cord off

Today we were supposed to have playground visits, so the parents can bring the new kids and watch them interact outside, but it stormed during the night so the visits were canceled. Of course, by ten a.m. the ground was bone dry and it was as if moisture had never existed within the borders of Texas. But as I've mentioned before, the people in these here parts can get a mite panicky over inclement weather.

Anyhoo, instead I met eight or ten of my kids' parents, with no children present. They seem like a decent, nice group. I gave a brief overview of what we expect in kindergarten and our basic schedule, using a PowerPoint presentation Ms. K made for the team. My assistant sat at my laptop and clicked the mouse to change the pages whenever I pointed at the screen as if I had an old-fashioned projector remote and said "Ka-chunk!"

My wild, unpredictable way of speaking, my congenital irreverence for everything under the sun, and the simple fact that I'm a man in a traditionally female job probably made a few of the parents somewhat wary. That's to be expected. One father in particular, a Sikh --- but sans turban --- seemed a bit stiff, but it's all fine with me. I like to cultivate that initial shock by playing up the weirdness, then surprise them with smooth competence. They'll come around.

At the end of the day we had a brief tutorial on our new payroll procedures. Soon it'll all be online and we won't fill out sheets to request leave, nor will we get paper check stubs. That's the future, baby. (Checks info online) Hey! I have eighty hours of sick leave! I'ma stay home all week watchin' daytime teevee and eatin' Bugles!

The world don't care and yet it clings to me

Here's a meme I got sent.

My Life According to __________

Pick a favorite musical artist and answer all the questions as accurately and sincerely as possible using only song titles.

Artist picked: Tom Waits

Are you a male or female: Little Man
Describe yourself: Nobody
How do you feel: Young at Heart
Describe where you currently live: House Where Nobody Lives
If you could go anywhere, where would you go? San Diego Serenade
Your favorite form of transportation: Train Song
You and your best friend are...? (Lookin' For) The Heart Of Saturday Night
What's the weather like: In Shades
Favorite time of day: The Ghosts of Saturday Night
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called? Just Another Sucker On the Vine
What is life to you: Misery Is the River Of the World
Your relationship: Bad Liver And a Broken Heart
Your fear: How's It Gonna End
What is the best advice you have to give: Never Let Go
Thought for the day: I Never Talk To Strangers
How you would like to die: The Earth Died Screaming
Everything sucks because: Everything Goes To Hell
Everything's okay because: World Keeps Turning
Your soul's present condition: The Part You Throw Away
Your motto: I'm Still Here

I'm going to unpack all my things before it gets too late

Work on my room goes apace. Things are finally starting to look a little more organized and neat. Actually, my room has a rather ascetic atmosphere compared to my three female K counterparts. For example, I eschew those cascade bookshelves that so many other EC rooms have, preferring typical horizontal shelves. The resulting minimalism is not necessarily a good thing, and I do feel like I'm not being quite as colorful and tactile and welcoming and cutesy as they are, but I guess I gotta be me. My classroom looks more like a third-grade room than a kindergarten one. But hell, we still have fun.

Today at lunch Admin Assistant Fen was commiserating with Counselor about their dating mishaps (both are astoundingly attractive young single women), saying "Yeah, the guy should know how to act, but you don't want to have to tell him. You want him to just know it."

I said, "I wish you could really hear yourself right now." I mean, I do understand her meaning, but it's a fantasy. No date's going to go well if you're looking for a mind reader.

She did use a funny term, though. Referring to a lot of men's tendency to text instead of manning up and calling a women they're maybe sort of interested in, she said, "They use their texticles because they don't have the balls to call." It wasn't until I actually wrote this post that I realized it was an extant term; I thought she coined it on the spot.

Drowning in the sound of my own rhapsody

Man, there is a lot to do when preparing for a new class. I would have thought it would be easier the second time around in the same room, but no. Among the things that ought to be made before Day One:

Kids' names labels for the chairs
Handwriting folders
Blank math folders for story problems
Name tags for attendance board
Name tags for the job chart
Nine blank weather charts
Writing journals
Take-home work folders
Computer use schedule
Open space use schedule

...And so forth. As I tell anyone within hearing range at work, if I didn't have my lovely and talented Assistant, I'd be lost. She's a funny, friendly, easy-going woman who used to be on the substitute team with me. Now she has this part-time job because of her young son. Over the course of the last year and a half, she got pregnant, got divorced, and is now happily remarried.

We make a great team, except that for whatever reason, the two of us together seem to be dumber than each one of us separately. It's like we both expect the other one to do the thinking. It's awesome.

Stitch on stitch and earn to urn, a presence on the lift

Well, work started. We got a free breakfast and a free lunch (I skipped the first and the second was nasty, but it's the thought that counts). Spent most of the day on a project very long overdue --- reorganizing, going through, sorting, or trashing every item on Mr. C's over-crowded shelves. The room looks like a damn midden, but at least I'll know where things are when this is all over. Hopefully.

We had Blood Borne Pathogens training courtesy of The Nurse again, and watched the same outrageously awful video as last year, starring The World's Worst Actress and three young people who represent HIV, Hep B, and Hep C. The one who represents HIV was a black jock. That's so racist.

I came home and took a three-hour nap. Um... that was overkill. I shouldn't do that.

Newbery VI

Continuing where we left off...

In 1927 the America Library Association took a break from heaping praises on less than stellar collections of legends from faraway lands, and turned to a quintessentially American story in Smoky the Cowhorse, by Will James.

This book follows the life of a range horse, from his birth, though the various occupations he's put to, and finally to being put out to pasture for retirement. James makes the horse the center of the story, and tells it as realistically as possible while making Smoky an exceptional beast. (The horse never voices an opinion, let alone talks; James tries to express silent instinct or antipathy without anthropomorphizing the animal.)

Indeed, Smoky isn't actually his name, except inasmuch as a bronco buster named Clint calls him that for a while. Most of his life he's a nameless, wild horse, free on the range, learning to stay with the herd, avoid and kill rattlesnakes, fight wolves, and so on. Annually he is corralled by cowboys and made to do range work: herding steer, which he grows to enjoy. After some misadventure, he is known by the name of Cougar as a famous cowboy-killing bucking bronco, and later still he's called Cloudy as an indifferent riding horse for greenhorn dude equestrians.

Things look bleakest for him when, older and enfeebled by a lifetime of action, he’s sold as a workhorse, regularly beaten and mistreated. Of course there’s a happy ending, but James lets it unfold with patience; nothing is neatly packaged or trite, and Smoky is far from a pet, or even so much as tame, even at the end. It’s a superior animal story, but unfortunately made a bit difficult for the modern reader by two factors.

One, James writes in a sub-literate dialect ("them horses was running," "If Smoky could only knowed, there’d been a lot of suffering which he wouldn't had to've went thru"), which may have been intentional or not, but either way it's not charming or conducive to good reading practice. And then, common words, even equine vocabulary such as "gait," are misspelled, which indicates that the ungrammatical dialect may have been the best James could do. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it makes for hard reading.

Second, and far worse, there's a deep racism in the book. The two villains are Mexican. One is referred to with contempt as a "breed" (short for "half-breed," he being half-Mexican, half "other blood that’s darker") with no morals. The other is a similarly immoral, cruel man who is beaten for his cruelty by a white man in front of a laughing sheriff who stops the fight, but only because the Mexican's death would make work for him, "same as if he were a white man." It's a pity, because James is a decent storyteller, and though I don’t care for animal tales as a rule, this one drew me in. This is a book a product of its time, certainly.

Recommended for children: I'm afraid not.

Recommended for adults: It's not bad, if you can look past the ugly racial views and the cowpoke writing style. Not for everyone, at the very least.

I've gathered myself from the bits and remains and the pieces I've pulled from all of my days

I spent my Saturday renting a truck from Home Depot (motto: "the people in our Tool Rental department are total pricks") and helping my aunt move. She was planning to move to LA where her male companion lives, but apparently he's a crazy person just like the last guy, and broke up with her via a text message because she talks to her son too much or something. Anyhoo, she's just sold her house, and she's storing a lot of her clothes in my house while she's temporarily without a place to call her own and nomadic. She also gave me Cousin's bed and night stand, which is pretty sweet. Now I have a real guest room that actually looks inviting, instead of just having a mattress on a floor.

Uh, I mean, I just got back from helping my aunt move, and boy, are my arms tired!

***

Conversation with guy who lives on my street as I passed by taking Dog for a walk:

Me: "Howdy." [Which after all is short for "how d'you do."]
His reply: "How are you doing?" [Much in the style, surely inadvertently, of Joey from "Friends."]
Me: "Oh, good." [Pause.] "And you?"
Him: "Fine, and yourself?"

I thought I'd let that one lie where it was and kept walking.

When the crowd becomes your burden and you've early closed your curtains, I'll wait by the backstage door

Had dinner with Friar and Muffin and their children at the Green Margarita. I ordered what I hoped was the healthiest thing I could ask for --- bean burritos with cheese and rice --- but the beans were refried and the cheese was that glowing orange crap Tex-Mex restaurants love so well. I've been making a fairly decent effort since returning from my travels to eat healthy, so it made me mildly ill for some hours afterward. At least I didn't eat any meat dishes. Instead of taking six months off my life, this meal only reduced my life span by three months.

***

HWT and I decided that Kate (of "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" fame) now has a vagina so cavernous, she can only get pleasure by inserting into it something the width of a baby's cranium. Thus the loathsome cycle continues. Also: HWT and I are filthy, filthy people.

***

You know how wives can sue rich ex-husbands for alimony, claiming that the husband got them used to a certain standard of living that they didn't enjoy before the marriage, so the husbands thus owe their ex-wives money enough for them to continue living up to that now-established standard? Using the same logic, I wonder if I can sue Prestigius for a salary I don't work for? After all, the school is the one that's been enabling me to live this slothful, idle lifestyle --- paying me, quite literally, to do nothing --- so the school bears the burden of continuing to fund my decadent lifestyle. Let's face it, it's what I'm used to now!

***

Once again (see last year's whining, with Michael5000's excellent comment), work seems to have drafted me into various committees and responsibilities I'd, frankly, rather not have. The year hasn't even started yet and already I'm on the Fund Committee and the Expansion Committee, and --- perhaps most ludicrously --- in an after-work leadership course. Yes, because leading and wielding authority are what I do best. Also, am I really the best pick for helping determine how the school will grow in the future? I just got here, and I'll probably be dead before any new building starts.

The finger points to those who might've chose a path different than that which failure closed

Friar's wife celebrated a birthday this week, so I didn't see much of the man himself; he either celebrated with her or was left alone with the kids as she went out for some peace and quiet.

I went out with Hot Waitress T (who really should be called Hot Special-Ed Teacher T now) to a show where Sonar was playing. First, I picked her up where she lives downtown in a fancy high-security building and we were almost mugged because the streets down there are crawling with unemployed oppressed scam artists and street predators. Someone came close to a stabbing but I don't know if it was him or me --- you best believe I carry a blade when I go down to Devil's Elm, boy. He peeled away when a cop on a Segway rolled by obliviously. T and I went to one of her favorite spots, a trendy bar that had a lot of hipsters in it. I had artichoke pizza, which was okay. Stupid hipsters.

Yesterday I finished translating a French review for Sonar --- the third such I've done for him --- so in gratitude he put us on the list (which he probably would have done anyway, though.) It was a fun show. I saw two acquaintances: one a waitress at Hangout II who made us the infamous Swine Flu shots and ate a very late drunk dinner with us once; the other was a local music blogger with some degree of recognition in town. I don't know him very well, but he seems to think I do.

Work Monday --- no kids, but Faculty Days. Gotta get the room ready and meet the new parents. But... but I'm used to sitting around doing nothing now!

Can't you feel that sun a-shinin'?

Back!

For the first time in what to the best of my recollection is three years, I left Devil-Town and went on not one but two mini-vacations!

In the first, I went to see my good friend 神圣 in San Diego. The visit just happened to coincide with the San Diego Comic Con, so we figured we might as well go. You know, as long as I was there and all. Also, we're both total geeks. I took lots of pictures of attendees in costumes. Not of the professional booth girls --- I find that to be a particularly egregious example of pandering to fanboys --- but of regular people who took the time to make creative, fun costumes. Some of them did incredible jobs, like a Dark Knight Joker who was carrying around a pencil as a prop, a couple who were a perfect Hal Jordan and Jade, a slight girl dressed as the Joker on vacation (shorts and a Hawaiian shirt over the usual regalia), and a terrific Red Skull.

There was something for everyone, from a very attractive young lady dressed as the Silk Spectre --- hott --- to the cutest little four-year-old boy dressed as the Dark Knight Joker --- possibly inappropriate --- with his even littler sister, who tried her best to be that girl from Harry Potter. One woman dressed as Lara Croft got a bit shirty when I failed to recognize her. "I don't know anything about video games," I said, and she returned hotly that it was also a movie.

Fun fact: if you ask someone dressed as Spider-Man if you can take their picture, they instantly crouch down and make the web-shooting gesture. One hundred percent of the people dressed as Spider-Man did this.

Later, we went out for drinks with an upcoming Marvel artist who just did a stint on The Punisher, he and 神圣 being old school friends from Taiwan.

Back in the real world, 神圣 and I and his family had a blast in San Diego. Beaches, sushi, bars, his fellow doctoral students (one friend I met is doing his dissertation on French film noir, and was a fascinating person). It's a beautiful city and the weather was gorgeous. His two kids were well-behaved and adorable; it was a blast watching them at Comic Con as well. His wife gave birth to their third about seven hours after I left, maker her, as another woman remarked, "quite the trooper" for walking around at Comic Con with us the second day.

For the second vacation, I went to Portland for a week to visit Brother and Sister-In-Law, not to mention Nephews 1, 2 and 3, the last of whom is nearly three and whom I had never seen before. I also saw Deep Blue, my old high school and undergraduate friend, his wife Cyan and their now three-year-old son.

Just before I arrived, Portland had been experiencing some pretty severe heat there, but it thankfully broke and it was beautifully cool to warm. We went peach-picking and collected some of the most delicious fruit I've ever had ("the Mackinaws are in, Jerry!"), except maybe the fresh-picked plums we were given by a homeowner with a tree in her yard. We visited all the great food places: Mio sushi, Apizza Scholls, the Ben & Jerry's store, and that haven for gluttonous locavores, Burgerville.

Not too much had changed since I was last there --- my nephews are still brats, Portland still has a lot of hobos and rude bicyclists, it's a verdant paradise, and the economy is sluggish. A lot of storefronts have been remodeled and revamped, but they seem to sit empty. I was immensely cheered to see so many local businesses still going strong (except maybe in the case of Dixie Mattress --- how does that place stay open, anyway?). Portland is a walker's city, and the people enjoy supporting the community. Streets like Sandy, which require cars to drive down, don't do as well as touristy but laid-back Mom-and-Pop areas like Hawthorne or Division.

Anyway, now back in the heat of Devil-Town. Work starts Monday. I've been totally idle since the last week of May.