Eco Bags

Fantastic project I am involved in was on the radio!!!

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/86718/

who said racism is just for high schoolers? apparently not vermont.

it really is so lovely to have college students say "it's not fair" to you when you explain to them that turning in a two page paper when the minimum requirement was three pages means they get a 50%. and that's being gracious. in my world, they would get a 0. "it's not fair." you know what's not fair? me having to listen to you. me having to explain to you, a 20-something person, that not following directions means you don't get an A. me having to play dream destroyer and tell you that "working hard" does not mean you're awesome. or exceptional. it's also not fair that i have to listen to you tell me that it's my fault you did poorly because i didn't tell you exactly how to fix your paper. i'm going to punch you in your stupid, whiny mouth. hard.

in other racist news, i learned of a fairly disconcerting situation at a college i work(ed) at. a female student of mine was absent from class a few weeks ago and i was told, both by her and college administration, that this absence was due to her being frightened of another student on campus. i explicitly asked the college admin person if this was a domestic violence-type situation, and was told yes. having had my own run-in with a violent ex-boyfriend in college, i was especially sympathetic to what happened to her. so sure, make up the quiz, take your time, i understand.

WELL.... today after a final exam a student of mine asked me if i was teaching at the college next semester, i said no, and this student asked whether it was because of what had happened there. hmm... no.... but please go on. turns out that this "domestic violence" situation is a bunch of hoo-hah. i'm working on finding out what i can, but from what i was told, "innocent" female student yelled racial slurs at nauseum at this male student, a black male student, until he grabbed her and told her to be quiet. THAT incident was reported to the college admin and as a result...... the black male student was kicked out. THE BLACK MALE STUDENT WAS KICKED OUT. again, my investigative shoes are going to do what they can, but holy crap. the male student is absolutely gone now, and i'd like to know what sort of work the school did to figure out what happened. was there some sort of student court thing? or did they just err on the side of the white female student? as someone who was legitimately terrified to leave her own dorm room after her ex assaulted her, it's absolutely maddening to think this woman presented the situation as a domestic violence situation when it was nothing of the sort. beyond maddening. the good thing... it sounds like students are mad. really mad. hopefully mad enough to do something about it. in the meantime, it's time to do some investigating.

government bat project

Monday was a doozle of a day as far as classroom antics goes, so get comfortable and ready to laugh. It was my penultimate day teaching at the high school, which meant that the barely-there filter that I try to keep intact was slowly being eaten away by the delightful stories spewing out of my mouth. I pulled out the story about convincing my sister Erica I was dead, how we used to shock her on the electric fence surrounding our house, and then we got to the science of the day: heterogeous and homogeneous mixtures. I asked them what “homo” meant and they said “same,” and what “hetero” meant and they said “different.” Very good. I then said “It’s like homosexual. If you are a homosexual boy you hang out with other boys, if you are a homosexual girl you hang out with girls. If you are a heterosexual girl, you hang out with boys…. until you get to college and do some experimentation.” Gasps, gasps, gasps. Someone muttered "this is a Catholic school" and I responded "yep, and I only have one more day teaching here." THEN, we get talking about atomic energy and fission and fusion and Hiroshima. A science-type boy in the back who likes to show me how much he knows raises his hand and asks me if I know what the US government was working on before the bomb. I tell him I don’t, and he proceeds to go on about…. get ready….. bats. Bats that the government would equip with little detonating devices that would explode when they got into Japanese houses. Bats. My face looked relatively skeptical and I made a flapping motion with my arms and asked “bats?” and he kept going on about how they had had actually implanted the detonating devices into the bats but that didn’t work. At this point the psychopath student in the front yells back that they made the bats explode and I am guffaw laughing like a maniac. Bats. I say “OK… so you’re telling me the government was weighing these two options: (lift left hand up) bats with backpacks on…… or (lift right hand up) the atomic bomb? Hmmm….. ” I assured him that I did not NOT believe him.. that it was crazy enough to be true. Bats.

Then my college class. This is the class where the students show ZERO excitement about anything and the lectures can get relatively painful. So I was giving a lecture on reproductive biology, my FAVORITE SUBJECT IN THE WHOLE WORLD. I’m all excited talking about ovulation and birth control and in vitro fertilization and all that super sexy stuff, but of course I’m getting zippo interest from the class. So I decide to have fun with it.

Fun time #1: my description of how birth control works. “The pill works by preventing ovulation, meaning no egg is released so there’s no egg to fertilize. It also thickens the cervical mucus. It’s basically like your vagina got slimed. Like if a Ghostbuster had a proton pack that shot out slime instead.”

Fun time #2: talking about why it is harder for older women to conceive. I’m looking at the class as I discuss how the older a woman is, the older her eggs are, and I’m knowing that they are completely zoning out and so I say “And the reason that older women have such a harder time conceiving is because they are so unattractive.” Tick. Tick. Tick. Nothing. “Wow, I didn’t think you were listening, but wow. They have a harder time conceiving because their eggs are older.” Couple of uncomfortable laughs, then I continued with my lecture on the most interesting stuff EVER. And tried to say “ejaculation”, “semen”, “vaginal discharge”, “pulling out,” and anything else that made them shift uncomfortably in their seats. Mission accomplished.

tribes and babies and oh my

i'm not going to say that high schooler's don't necessarily serve a purpose, but i'm pretty sure they don't serve a purpose. except maybe to be smelly and wear ill-fitting clothing and touch each other and talk about gross things and refuse to be excited about anything and be generally obnoxious. middle schoolers are sweet, sweet gems of fun bubbles and jelly beans and unbridled excitement. and i miss them. i've got five days and counting at the little den of ignorance and intolerance... and today i heard some real eye-poppers.

december 1st is World AIDS Day when you give everyone you can AIDS. kidding. i was talking to my two classes about a study that just came out showing that medical malpractice has contributed to millions of cases of AIDS in africa. (see jonathanturley.org for the article) so i asked my classes why it is that africa has had such a big problem with the virus. a couple of the most colorful and frightening responses:
1- "because they live in tribes and have babies all day long." my response: "that may be the most racist thing i've ever heard you say." her response: "it's not racist. they don't all live in tribes." THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.
2- "because they have huge orgies." this was said by a new student of mine who definitely has nerdy, science-type tendencies, so of course as soon as he said this he started blushing and i started giggling and responded by saying, "well, let's all assume that they're wearing condoms and it's a safe orgy. you all should wear condoms. always. girls, make sure they put one on."

five. more. days.

apparently i'm getting uber crafty

there's more... i'm loving them





so today i'm sitting in my classroom and the icky math teacher strolls on in. he's icky for a variety of reasons, but his obsession with TI-83s and any other calculator the TI family might put out is frightening. FRIGHTENING. he's lost in mind in faculty meetings before when people brought up online books, as though they have been produced by the robot army that is slowly working its way through the bowels of technology, counting the minutes and days until the powerful TIs will be removed from their throne of moving sine graphs. so he strolls in and sort of looks at me and then says "so the students are saying that you've resigned." i tell him that yes, yes i have, and he then stares at me for about 30 seconds. 30 seconds of nothing except glassy, TI-strained, bloodshot eyes. then he sort of looks down and kind of makes these snorty/exhalation noises like a horse, then starts talking to me about....... yep, calculators. after a few minutes of that, he says "well... if you're leaving for personal reasons.. i just.... i mean, if it's personal... i just really think you should give (the school) a chance." i think i said something like "well, i appreciate your opinion." and then threw a TI-83 on the floor and danced in its shattered plastic splatter.

rhett butler... you are divine

yesterday i went to the movies to see gone with the wind. the local theatre here was playing it on the big screen, and since i had never seen, i figured seeing it in a proper-style theatre with lots of old people would be the way to go. and was it ever. FOUR HOURS. the movie is four hours. and no one in the theatre died during those four hours. thankfully. but i was neck-deep in little old ladies (and suspiciously, very few old men.... but then i realized they were all probably dead), many of whom were wearing fur coats and were incredibly dolled-up. very cute. and the movie was great and i officially have a huge crush on rhett butler. stupid scarlett. ashley's a total dud and gross-looking and rhett was so great and funny and dashing and charming and ugh. what an idiot. ol' ethel next to me was just as irritated as i was.

my latest project: making frames out of old books. and i'm loving them. they're aged and rough and cute and will look really rad hanging up. with sexy lady photos in them.

and in case the zebra comment didn't get you....

i just remembered something else mr. bright pants said. he told me he used to fill in at the high school i resigned from. he asked about what happened with the football team, and when i told him what they shouted and the aftermath, he responded with "i taught those kids. those are all good kids. there's not a racist in the bunch." really? i am so goddamn tired of that response to what these kids did. how exactly do you define what a racist is? if yelling "kill n***ers" doesn't fall into your definition, maybe you need readjust your criteria. what exactly does it take to be considered a racist around here? lynching? being a part of the KKK? i would say that being a subtle racist still makes you a racist, but it's not even about subtlety! you screamed for the destruction of other groups of people based on their race, sexual identity, and religious affiliation. that makes you a racist, homophobe, and anti-semite. done.

don't tell me zebras can't be domesticated

last night i went out for drinks with some folks and had a relatively ridiculous interaction with an older man sitting to my left. i brought the book i was reading to the restaurant because i'm a nerd and always have a book with me in case i'm sitting there waiting for someone. which i was. the book: Guns, Germs, and Steel. an interesting book that discusses why it is that european culture came to be the prevalent world culture, why it is the europeans tended to be the conquering folks, etc. very compelling and fun and thought-provoking. and written by a guy who won a macarthur genius grant, so obviously the guy's not a total moron. so my friend shows up and i set the book down, little knowing that the older man who's about to sit on my left is about to feast his eyes on it and get a little wacky. i actually take notice of the older man when i glance over and see his incredibly bright orange pants. not hunting pants, just bright orange. since i have my own pair of bright orange pants that i love, i didn't fault him for it, just made the observation. so then a couple of minutes later, he says "so what do you think of that book?" i respond by saying the author poses really interesting theories and ideas and blah blah. well, this guy counters back with how he's a history teacher and this book really ignores huge things, and how people take the book as the bible when really the fact of the matter is that some people ARE really superior to other people and don't try telling him that you can't domesticate zebras because he's seen it. wow. i try to say that the author isn't necessarily trying to ignore those other factors, but is attempting to explain history from an angle that hasn't been done much before. he continued on with how he had to substitute teach at a school and they made him play some film about how a white woman converted to islam and went to mecca and how great her experience was, but they weren't telling the whole story and as an american he wants the truth. ARE YOU KIDDING? and yes, his wife/partner/mistress was sitting next to him, but by this point he was practically in my lap and things were getting uncomfortable. i managed to escape for a little bit, but then later in the evening, and after some wine, it started up again... this time with him trying to get me to taste his chardonnay, me absolutely refusing and telling him that was gross, and then him leaning in and saying "you're cute." no... i'm not. but, i do know you have lots of ties and you should donate them to me for the ecofest stuff i'm doing. get out of my lap.

why i love kids

there are two boys in my high school class who are.... let's just say they aren't necessarily the types to turn their homework in or stay on task or always have their shoelaces tied. but they are also very bright kids who are exceptionally sweet and come from houses where there is a lot of yelling and little attention paid to them. i have a soft spot for both of them and have really worked to reinforce the great things they do and keep them motivated and get them involved and pretty much remind them on a daily basis that they are good kids. i think one of them is taking my leaving rather hard because i am one of the teachers that he gets along with and is able to talk to. and it's leaving those kids that is the hard part of all of this.... those kids that so easily get pushed aside because they are "problem" kids... that problem being that they come from awful social and emotional situations that they don't know how to deal with.

so i check my email today and waiting for me is a message from one of these kids:

Dear Dr. L

I'm very sorry for the students at XXX and hope you can forgive us. Now I can really see why you are doing what you are doing. I am apologizing for the jerks and myself for being a problem in your class. I did not mean to be a problem sometimes it just happens and well i guess XXX feels the same way he may seem to be a pain but deep down he must be good. For all of the other kids in our school i can not say much others feel the same but I am trying to stop the mean things being said about you.

and that's why kids are awesome.

mad as a hatter. so mad.

i guess i was naive to assume that my resigning would go smoothly. but some part of me thought that considering all the times i have spoken to people at the school about my frustration with both the incidents of hate-speech and disrespect from students they wouldn't necessarily be that shocked at my leaving. but they were. shocked and angry. and it's hard to tell where exactly those reactions are coming from. it's almost as though they are shocked that i would really, for real, resign on principle. resign because i will not associate myself with a place that tolerates and silently excuses hate. i won't do it.

the angry reaction is a little bit harder to dissect. and let me say that the anger i have had directed at me since resigning is far more intense than anything i saw the football team receive during their hate-speech bonanza. i think part of that anger comes from a warped sense of loyalty, or a warped sense of loyalty that some people feel i should have. loyalty either to them as people or to the school in general. then another part of it comes from embarrassment. and then another part.... it seems as though people like to talk about all these changes that are going to happen to curb the intolerance, but nothing happens. and then when i decide to do something and resign, the first reaction people have is anger because my resignation indeed indicates that something really is wrong and they're standing around and letting it happen. that for all the talk going on, there is no action being taken. and talk is important, but if you're not going to follow up on anything, then you're just going through the motions to make yourself feel better. and i of course realize that my leaving, i'm removing a person from the school who was working hard to make these changes happen. but when you're one person bashing your head up against the wall and getting punched in the face by gross racists, perhaps it's time to walk away. my leaving is one of the few repurcussions i have actually seen at the school. you act like this, you refuse to take action, then i walk away. but i'll probably be ducking in case you try throwing anything at my head. grossos.

passion pit of passion... i love that band

hilarious/frightening treat of the day: on a female college student's homework: "a pap smear is when a woman usually 18 years and older go to a doctor and get tested for cancer in their boobs." my written response: "who is your doctor?"

and in my anatomy class today, i reminded my students to make sure that they wrap their dissected cats in wet paper towels... because "nobody likes a dry pussy. what? did i just say that out loud?" yep. yep i did.

so my resignation has been submitted and i am counting the days. i've come to realize that it isn't the actions of the students that are moving me to leave, it's the complete apathy of the faculty and staff. COMPLETE AND UTTER APATHY. and if there's one thing i may add to my list of "things i abhor," it's apathy. and that goes across the board: apathy in regards to social issues, sexy-time relationships, politics, you name it. show some passion! how can you not being worked-up about being in love, or being surrounded by racist idiots, or making the best goddamn sugar cookies you've ever made in your life?! being excited and ethusiastic about people and places and things you love doesn't make you some sort of infantile who's missing the bigger picture. it may just be that you do see the bigger picture and that's all the more reason to be excited about what's going on right in front of you. denying yourself those small moments of excitement, and sometimes infuriation, leaves a space where that visceral, emotional connection just might be. good or bad, those emotions are beautiful and frightening and challenging and a gorgeous reflection of the energy you are bursting with. i love it. i love that energy and i love that passion. and i love people who aren't afraid to show it. like my sisters. we built a mouse maze for andrea's pet mouse red and that was one of the most exciting and awesome projects ever. in the history of the world. no, it wasn't when we were kids, it was three months ago. rope swings, forest made of pencils, paper towel tower... amazing! hug some exciting person tonight... :)

that bastard dr. moreau

this morning i told my high school chemistry class about this crazy book i just read called The Island of Dr. Moreau. i figured that none of them had ever heard of it, or H.G. Wells for that matter, and i was right. they asked me to describe what happens and i did, making sure to talk up the outrageous creatures and the questionable ethics of one dr. moreau and when i was finished the reigning pumpkin princess exclaimed "wait, is anyone on to this guy? where is his island?" i assured that that there was no real dr. moreau and that mr. wells wrote this and many other science fiction novels/stories to shed light onto advances in the sciences and their unforseen consequences. i'm not sure she was convinced. she seemed a little more at ease when another student mentioned they had seen the movie and it was real messed up. i'm now reading Guns, Germs, and Steel but i think their heads might explode if i tried to explain what they was about... and that it's nonfiction.

in other news, i went to my first auction yesterday and bought two paintings... actually one painting and one woodblock etching. so exciting! of course i bid within the first twenty-five items and when i secured my first painting i squealed with delight. the aunctioneer looked at me and said "first auction? i can't tell." and then started laughing super hard. hells yeah it's my first auction and you're lucky i dont have more money or i would have swiped that pair of oriental lamps with grazing deer on them from under your nose.

and i'm outtie...

1- i graded anatomy and physiology exams yesterday and two students used "cock block" when describing the role of tropomyosin in muscle contraction. awesome.

2- i was raised to never quit anything. that you always see things through, finish projects to completion, even if and especially when they get difficult. but as i've aged, i've found that there are situations when walking away is a little bit different than quitting. that doesn't always make it any easier, but situations aren't always as emotionally vacant as finishing a cross-stitch pattern of the berenstain bears. that being said, i have decided to put in my 30-day notice at the high school. i had a very long discussion today with the new person in charge of development at the school today and was shocked by how far up the school foodchain the apathy and warped priorities go. the poor guy is just at appalled as i am and also has the added joy has of hearing stories from his son (a freshman nerdy type) about how much he wants to learn but he can't because of the other students yelling and swearing at the teachers. OUTRAGEOUS. i also discovered the belligerant student i had the run-in with has not paid his tuition in three years. so not only is he abusive, he's being abusive for free. mr. development and i also had a very insane exchange when both of us talked about how we are physically afraid of the football coach and football players and are waiting to walk out to the parking lot to see our cars either keyed or the windows bashed in. these are reasonable fears we have because we stand up for normal nice things.

incidents of racist and sexist and homophobic dialogue are still not being addressed and the majority of faculty and administration seem to find it acceptable to keep passing the "tolerance torch" around. as in, "i'm not sure what to do, why don't we form a subcommittee and they can figure it out. " students are not punished for disrespectful behavior, academic achievement is minimal, faculty are drowning in their own apathy, the football coach is still on-staff, and i am tired of being the radical lesbian bitch who tells students to stop swearing and wants them to be smart. and the lack of support from the administration is the final straw. and did i mention i'm only working part-time? so tomorrow my letter of resignation is going in. and i can spend more time with my dog and eco dorks. i miss dorks so much.

hate? yep... hate

i don't hate many things. in fact, i try really hard to not actually hate anything. except beets. they're super gross. but i don't allow my students to use the word "hate" and encourage them instead to use interesting, fun words like "abhor" and "detest." it makes them seem much smarter and less limited. but i think something i really hate, in the purest sense of the word, is cancer. cancer and apathy, but that's another blog. i hate cancer because it's greedy and insatiable. i hate the way it tears at families and folks and robs them of security and futures. and granted, i can see the ways that these upheavals in comfort can actually promote bursts of enlightenment and gratitude, but does it have to go about it in such a nasty way? does it have hit up my cousin at age 20 with leukemia that keeps her in treatments for years, and just when she's on her way out, it hits her mom with breast cancer? was it really necessary? did it think that aunt monny wasn't taking it seriously enough? that it had to come in for round 2? unfortunately for the cancer, it hasn't seen our family dance at family weddings and has no idea how badly we're going to kick its ass.

the outlier

unfortunately all this mess is not just in my head. and by mess, i mean the not-so-subtle "boo hiss dr. larson" attitudes at the high school i am teaching at. my eco club committee has dwindled down to three students, my interactions with students i've never interacted with but have a certain association with a certain sports team are confrontational and aggressive at best, and yesterday i had a particularly ridiculous run-in with a student who likes sucking face with his girlfriend in the hallway. the result of my asking them to refrain from such activity was me writing up an incident report because the kid went ballistic on me. and where might all this antagonism stem from? from my being vocal about the hate-speech that was/is perpetrated by the school football team. i was really, really hoping this was all in my head, but this morning the principal told me that in his "apologetics" class, football players continue to bring up my name, that they are still confused by what point i was trying to make. hmmm... if i didn't think you were a racist, misogynistic, misguided, intellectually and emotionally-stunted person i might take the time to explain it to you. but you are, and i have other things to do. i have to say it legitimately make me sad to realize that no, i am not reading the signals wrong, and that yes, these kids are having whatever brain cells remain warped into thinking that i am the enemy here. that my intellect and fortitude are threatening and should be met with disrespectful and ignorant behavior. it's sad and frustrating and angering.

and to sort of top it off, i had an interview yesterday with a gentleman on a committee determining if discussed high school should join some association, and after our discussion he remarked "you're really an outlier here." granted, it made me happy that he should use the term "outlier" (but he is a physics teacher and thought my joke of teaching empathetic and empirical thought was funny), but my response was "well, if thinking that being nice to each other is really important makes me an outlier, i'm an outlier." and as another teacher who i really like and respect told me today, "you are the pink, commie liberal here." awesome. where can i get a huge-ass poster of stalin?

igloo? ice cream?

this is why i love halloween. not the weirdo dog picture. i'm standing in like at joann fabrics tonight with my to-be-cut ribbon when a 7-year-old and her grandma get in line behind me. the girl is in solid native american attire, braids, moccasins, beading... an exceptional costume. she's looking me and my ribbon up and down, trying to figure out what exactly i could be doing with it. i start unravveling the material to get it ready for cutting, when i realize that there is a long piece already cut. i look at her and the bantering starts...
me: "did you cut my ribbon?"
girl: "no."
me: "are you sure?"
girl: "yes."

i then wrap the ribbon around myself a few times to make sure it's long enough.
girl: "you probably need to cut that."
me: "actually, i need it to be long enough to wrap around me a few times so i think it's ok."
girl: "what's your costume?"
me: "i'm going to be rough endoplasmic reticulum."
girl: *silence*
me: "do you know what that is?"
girl: "no."
me: "it's in your cells. are you in costume?"
girl: "yes."
me: "oh.. you're a dinosaur, right?"
girl: "no."
me: "a unicorn?"
girl: "no."
me: "a robot?"
girl: "no... it starts with an i and is a person."
me: "...... an ice cream cone?"
girl: "is an ice cream cone a person?"
me: "no... you're right. an inuit?"
girl: "what?"
me: "an igloo?"
girl: "no!"
me: "an indian?"
girl: "yes!"
me: "john smith?"
girl: "no... pocahontas."

i also found out pocahontas can't eat gluten, so halloween is the worst holiday ever for grandma. she spends most of the time telling her what she can't eat. pocahontas was also discussing her summer plans, which include buying a horse and a dog. i didn't have time to get into my childhood dream of being kidnapped by an indian brave who would take me to his awesome tribe camp and we would make great smart white lady/hot indian brave babies.

happy halloween.

tropomyosin... my my my

i'll use pretty much any analogy to make a concept i'm teaching stick. so today i was introducing my anatomy and physiology students to the mechanism underlying muscle contraction, namely, the binding of myosin to actin and subsequent movement of those funky little fibers past each other. SO.. in order for myosin to bind to actin, these little pesky proteins called tropomyosins need to be moved off the actin. and how did i describe the function of tropomyosins? i believe it went something like this... "tropomyosin prevents myosin from binding to actin when the muscle is at rest. it's kind of like the cock block of muscular contraction."

and did i mention two weeks ago when i was going through the answers of a test and said "number 1- d... as in dog. number 2-b... as in basket. number 3-c... as in cocksucker." it had been a rough day. unfortunately my students kept talking about how funny that was during my observation by my boss. but guess who's teaching not one, but two, classes there next semester? boo-yah.

:)

so i usually use this blog as a space for me to pass on humorous anecdotes, amusing observations, and occasionally racists antics to friends and family. i recently received an email from a friend asking "what was up with my blog? why no writing as of late? you're a funny writer." that struck me. i haven't been blogging, and it's something that i started to do to remind myself of the lovely events that pepper my life. it's not that super outrageous things happen to me on a daily basis; it's just that i try to be very aware of what's going on around me and i happen to find lots of things incredibly comical. lately that's been harder for me to do. that is, it's been more difficult for me to see the fantastic, wonderful, interesting things that enter and exit my life. as many of you know, the last few months have been extremely hard for me; i lost my best friend and partner when our relationship fell apart, i moved to a different part of the country where the average age of folks is 65, and i'm working several jobs that are culturally and intellectually stifling. the pain of the dissolution, lack of local support network, and frustration with my surroundings has been often times unbearable, and although i've tried my best to deal with it all of it as best i can, hurt like that is not something that i am able to intellectualize away. it comes out. comes out when i'm making breakfast, when i'm lighting a bunsen burner, when i'm falling asleep at night. i think i'm starting to realize that this heartache is not something that i can expect to just disappear; it's going to be something that is a part of me for some time, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to govern how i function. there are wonderful people in my life, there are hilarious situations happening all the time, there are reasons to be smile and be grateful. and just because you're grateful doesn't mean you're ignoring or stifling the pain. it means you're looking beyond that immediate hurt and letting yourself feel good again. so that's what i'm doing. the blog is back.

so with that, today i listened to a student say to his friend, ""i mean, could you imagine a reeces the size of a car tire? do you know how good that would be?" he's a senior.

breaking point... reaching... reaching... and hit

much like the moon blasting of last week, my breaking point has been reached. in case my faithful readers have forgotten, i am teaching at one high school (see racists below) and two colleges. one of these colleges has proven to be an incredibly frustrating one to teach at. i've not taught college before, but i'm assuming that the students registered at such an institution are coming with a certain set of knowledge-based and practical skills. i remember college. i remember my first year of college. i remember you had to get your stuff together pretty quickly and adjust your study habits to the requirements of the class. so when i have to use the same lectures i used with my 8th grade students last year for my college students, something's going wrong. when i can lecture for 100 minutes straight and not ONE STUDENT asks a question, something's messed up. when i pose a question to a class, the same question i asked middle school students, and not one person says anything, perhaps our definition of college-able student needs to be reevaluated. it's not the lack of knowledge that really kills me, it's the apathy. it's unbelievable. and today was it. i was done.

the question i posed: "why might genetic diversity be a good thing?" i'm looking for anything. anything at all. doesn't have to be right... just ideas. .... 10 seconds..... 20 seconds...... 30 seconds. nothing. not a peep. i decided to call their bluff. another 10 seconds..... still nothing. i'm so mad. i then say "seriously? my eighth graders would come up with something. anything." a girl in the front row says "what was the question?" and then the girl behind her blows a huge bubble and pops it. TO HELL WITH ALL OF YOU. i will not be sad to not be teaching at that school next semester.

any doubt racism still is a problem?

My motivation for remaining a part of the Vermont teaching community is at an all-time low. And for good reason. I received a message this past Friday from the Catholic high school I work at saying there was going to be a meeting for football players, their parents, and faculty. I had no idea what was going on and called the school office. The story: every Friday afternoon, after football practice, the football players gather for what is called "Church chat." They stand in front of the big church across the street from our school and get all pumped up by yelling things. Some of the things they yell (and my stomach is churning right now thinking about typing them) are "Kill *the n-word,* kill f-ggts, kill jews." No, I am not making this up, and no, you have not been transported back to 1950. A few of the football players who knew that this was INSANELY MESSED UP reported this to the administration and faculty and the team was made to forfeit the game on Saturday, do a community service project, and issue a public apology. The meeting on Friday night was to talk about all of this. I CANNOT in any way describe the insanity I witnessed at the meeting. Parents screaming about how great their kids are, who is it that's offended by this?", the punishment is way too severe, the principal (who is amazing and was called an asshole by one of the parents as they walked in the building) is unfairly punishing their children, etc. I was sitting in the back (having had one glass of wine before the meeting) absolutely stunned, shocked, and pissed. I raised my hand and delivered a soft-spoken, intelligent little speech on how important it is that we show the community that this behavior unacceptable, blah blah blah, and the people went NUTS on me. The football coach (who has a mullet, wore sweatpants, and no doubt lifts weights in his basement whilst looking at a poster of Cheryl Tiegs) gave some moronic response, staring at me the whole time, and at one point walking toward me like he was going to punch me. I asked the teacher sitting next to me whether I had just entered the Twillight Zone. BECAUSE I HAD. An hour and 1/2 of racist, in-bred justifcations for the football players followed, and the next time I spoke I was so pissed I started crying. I asked the players to repeat the words they had said but they refused, saying that was irrelevant. When I expressed how upsetting their behavior was, the response of one of the players was that that was my personal reaction, that that was my own thing to deal with. Yep.... it was my fault I was too sensitive. We had a teacher's meeting following the circus and so many people were crying, absolutely shocked by what they had just witnessed. It's one thing to be involved in a school where there's an issue of cultural insensitivity and the school community is willing to combat it, meet it head-on and deal with it. It's something completely different when you have a handfull of teachers (and a brave, amazing principal) who are fighting a battle against the establishment, trying eight hours a day to combat the racist, close-minded messages these kids are receiving at home. And I'm not 100% convinced that all of the teachers are on the same page.

So where I am with this now: still upset, go to bed thinking about it, wake up thinking about it. I know that the behavior of these kids and their parents is not at all a reflection of me and my convictions, but it's incredibly hard to think about working at an institution where a substantial number of folks think this way and are imparting their bigotry on their students. I've made the decision that unless something happens IMMEDIATELY, and by something I mean instituting sensitivity programs, weekly meetings on diversity awareness, etc., I am resigning in December. Unless those programs become part of the regular curriculum, nothing is going to change. And I'd much rather put my energy elsewhere. I already feel embarassed to tell people I work at the school, frightened that the idiocy these players have demonstarted is being assigned to all associated with the school. And did I mention this is a Catholic, Christian institution? Makes perfect sense.

just another day in class...

during my anatomy and physiology class this week, we were discussing different organelles of the cell and arrived at the lysosome. as i'm discussing the function of the lysosome (destroying things that a cell doesn't want around, like bacteria and stuff), a student in the front row says "oh.. is that why it's called the suicide sack?" i looked at him and asked him to repeat what he just said. "suicide sack... the book says that it can explode and kill the cell... is that why it's called the suicide sack?" i responded with "please stop saying the word sack" and then tried answering the question as best i could before my response fell apart... and it ended with "i'm sorry, all i can think about right now is sacks. and by sacks i mean testicles. and specifically yours." and there's the advantage of teaching adults.

boo hiss carbon

who thought those three little words could mean so much?

i am jumping headfirst into eco funness up here. last night i met with a group in rutland that coordinates and sponsors a ton of events bringing awareness to sustainability and the environment. there's going to be a big event on october 24 = the international day of climate action (check out www.350.org). the day is about making people aware of the impact they are having on the climate due to their carbon contributions... and a lot of business are sponsoring events around the number "350" (for 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). the yoga studio is doing 350 minutes of yoga, a church is doing 350 minutes of prayer.. and no, you do not need to be there the whole time for either of those. my students and i are going to make big CO2 molecules out of junk/trash and put them on display downtown. very exciting.....

so we're talking about all the different events we're doing and how we're going to coordinate/organize them.. and can i say how awesome it is to sit next to a 90-year-old church-going lady who keeps mumbling about how much she hates walmart. talk eventually turns to getting a big banner put up downtown that says something like "sustainable rutland: ways to reduce your carbon footprint." and then i pipe in with "OR..... boo hiss carbon." mind you, i have only met one of these people at the table one time before. an older woman looks at me and says "what did you say?" i mumble "boo hiss carbon," and she looks at the head lady and says "oh, that's good. write that down." i start laughing so hard that i have to pull my scarf over my face to hide my blushing and quickly reddening face. the older woman than comments on how creative i am, and i tell her that if "boo hiss carbon" makes it onto a banner i will have to remove myself from the group. cus that's outrageous. a huge banner with BOO HISS CARBON may be hanging in downtown rutland. and she kept saying it and pointing at me and smiling this big "oh that's good" smile for the remaining 45 minutes of the meeting. boo hiss indeed.

so much eco in your face

i am on an eco mission. you would think that a high school in vermont, a private one at that, would be all up on recycling and conservation and sustainability and such. but no. my high school is into sports and sports... and then sports. it's fairly odd and most of the times rather disconcerting. nevermind the fact that the football team got schmucked 66-8 last weekend... my previous attempts at starting conversation about a recycling club were met with "well, that club will take kids away from sports." IDIOTS. luckily, there are several faculty that are on the same wavelength i am and aren't huge dingbats. this week i met with folks from sustainable rutland, a group that promotes eco awareness and all that fun stuff, and we had a two hour brainstorming session about ways to get my high school involved in the movement. and what ideas we had! community gardens, recycling, composting in the lunch room... i am officially insanely excited. so i mention this to the science faculty at our monthly faculty meeting... and let me preface this by saying that most of the meeting was spend listening to an ancient faculty guy moaning about how much work the science fair is. so much work. SO MUCH WORK. really? are you serious? a lot of work if you are lazy and uninterested in your students. anyway, when i mentioned the community gardens and the whole eco club thing, it was met with "well.. you need to remember that the sports team sometimes use that field when their other field has water in it." OUTRAGEOUS. a huge green space with ZERO going on in it that could be utilized in such an amazing way. heaven forbid the squash team can't toss their little ball around. and may i say the first person to sign up for my club was a burly, big football player. :)

frosting by day, mega dance machine by night

apparently i needed to dance. and dance i did. and a little more than that. my cousin melissa's wedding last weekend in wisconsin was amazing. and fantastic. and she asked the DJ to play "the humpty dance" because she knows i love it and would bust out some crazy white girl dance moves on the dance floor. and then vomited profusely. my sister also told me i looked like i was made of frosting, which may be the best compliment i have ever received. i told more than one relative that melissa paid me $50 to stand on the wedding cake at the reception. i could have. and by the end of the night would have. other highlights from the weekend: building a mouse maze for my sister's awesome pet mouse Red. i only participated in the initial building stages, but i did get to make some sweet ropes for him to climb from the first to the third level on... climb up in the shadow of a great american flag and posters of other successful mice, i.e. Gus Gus, Mickey, the Great Mouse Detective. and proton didn't like me gone and slept in my suitcase the night i got back.

in other news, two kids from the high school i teach at were suspended because they yelled "heil hitler" and gave a nazi salute to a german exchange student during his spanish presentation. that's right. this kid is fluent in at least two languages, probably pretty ok in another, and these two yokels think it's super funny and awesome to scream third reich nonsense at him. and did i mention it's the football quarterback and another football douchebag? yep. lucky for all of us, their suspension won't affect their playing in the football game on saturday. did i mention i won't be teaching at this school next year?

any time of year

today was my first day of teaching at both the high school and one of the colleges i'll be at this fall. the morning was spent at the high school... the highlight of which was watching the students receive the combinations to their lockers, then stand in front of them while the resident priest blessed them. them being the lockers. just in case there was any sort of demonic locker possession going on. and then he sprinkled them in the face with holy water. them being both the students and the lockers. in the face. outrageous.

one of my classes at the college had a whopping three students in it. one of those students is the type that likes to correct everything you say and try to lead the lecture. we're not going to be friends. he also made sure to let us know that he's really good at both english at math, that he's memorized most of the fractions as decimals, and that he's good at drawing trees at any time of the year. i am unsure if that means that he's good at drawing trees in december as well as july, or if he's not thrown by those crazy shape-shifting oaks and their sneaky seasonal morphing. it's probably both. he seems really talented. ugh. i also made sure to tell my other class (this one having 21 students) to be sure to come to class because the rumor is that i'm super awesome. no laughing, no nothing. just blank stares. fantastic.

by any means necessary... including posters

so i have come to discover that the high school i am teaching at has some issues with cultural sensitivity. and by cultural sensitivity i mean racism. teachers have relayed to me some rather outrageous and terrible things students have said in class, or in response to a woman having pictures of her family (with African American members) on her desk, but that type of intolerance seems so 1964 that it's hard for me to comprehend. on friday, the librarian showed me the latest instance of this sort of behavior: obama's face on a newspaper with monkey-type drawings added to him. when she showed me i gasped out loud. a loud gasp, especially for a library. she'd been having scolding sessions with every class that came in there.... i get that kids can be racist, and in vermont it's that weird kind of racism where the kids have probably never even been in contact with a person of color... the kind of racism that exists in my midwest homeland. but damn. for real? i'm just hoping that no student of mine says something during class because i will lose it. and they are getting absolutely INNUNDATED with pictures and anecdotes and everything having to do with people of color. i've got more posters up about civil rights and malcolm X and the dalai lama than these kids will know what to do with. my room is going to be COVERED in color. and black people.

prepare for the robot attack

tomatoes!!!!! they're as tall as i am. granted, that's nothing to brag about, but for a tomato plant it's pretty impressive.

i started work at the high school i'm teaching at this year. and wow. wow. wow. it's a very small school (~80 students) and they are NUTSO about sports. relatively outrageous, especially considering their records of recent years are not too winning-like, but they're busting with all kinds of history of the sports times of old. it's all oldie-time male faculty members want to talk about. and do they talk about it. constantly. all the time. when they're not talking about how they pummeled so-and-so twenty years ago, they're handing me catholic prayer books. awesome. but the most INSANE thing had to be the faculty in-service conversation surrounding books online and getting our students comfortable and familiar with using online organizers and things like that. you know, bringing them in the 21st century. the math man sitting to my right (the man who, during my interview, after exclaiming that he thought i was a new student, leaned in and sneered at me asking "so what do you know about graphing calculators?) was getting really worked up about "that internet" and went on a three-minute rant about how "you can't get everything off that internet! you need books to do real work! you're either organized or you're not and i'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater! if we want the internet books so bad why don't we throw all our books out now?! and if books are so unimportant, what are we sitting in here for?" (we were in the library) i just put my head down and wished it would all be over with. i was waiting for him to continue on with how internet books are exactly what the robot people want us to fall for before they start sucking out our brains with their brain probes. and the son-of-a-gun has come into my room twice this week to tell me how awesome TI-83s are and try to give me programming information. i'm swearing off graphing calculators forever and putting up anti-TI propoganda in my room.

nice buns. prepare for armageddon.

those are them there cinnamon buns. let them rise in the fridge overnight and baked them up this morning. SO DELICIOUS. if you come to visit vermont you'll be treated to a batch of them. :)

so you may want to be up and ready around 8 a.m. tomorrow morning just in case something.... happens. like, let's say, the earth opening up and swallowing heathens and adulterers, thunder and lightning announcing the arrival of an army of angels wielding swords carved of the bones of infants and dripping with the blood of nonbelievers, a rain of insects and toads filling the streets and drowning canines shorter than knee-high with their venomous poisons and slimy dispositions. that's right. at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, i am headed to church. church. the place where people go to worship the sky god. it's the first day of in-service at the high school i am teaching at and that means worship of the most divine. the principal/priest already knows my religious tendencies, or lack thereof, and that's not going to be an issue or anything. but i do have a crucifix above my desk and i do have to go to church tomorrow. i plan on sitting in the back, the WAY back, keeping my head down, and making myself as non-conspicuous as possible. this also starts my "long sleeves only" fashion movement..... for the sake of the diocese. and my getting a pay check. MAN. church and long sleeeves. like i'm living in 1835.

domesticity continues

no... that is not a group of swirling, cinnamon-laden galaxies. those are cinnamon rolls that i made tonight. i am letting them rise overnight in the fridge for pure, delicious, sweet-as-sassafrass warmness tomorrow. turns out the recipe my mom gave me makes about 250 of them, so we'll be dining on cinnamon joy for weeks to come. yay!

also, i think i am going to start a photo diary of the duds i have managed to pick up this summer. some of them are much too fantastic and outrageous not to have documented. today's item = hot pink jackie onassis-style women's jacket and skirt number. AMAZING. will go great with the over-the-elbow black gloves i picked up.

bird assault

that would be equipment i found in the lab. i don't know what it does. i do know that i appreciate the color combination of red, turquoise, and yellow.

so this morning we heard a super odd, loud, banging sound coming from the upstairs bedroom. i said "sounds like a woodpecker," not anticipating that it would actually be..... a woodpecker. a huge, girthy woodpecker trying to bang its way into our house. pecking and pecking and pecking. i ran outside yelling "hey mr. woodpecker. stop pecking on our house. go peck on that tree" (but add lots of profanity) and he (or she) flew off. but they quickly returned. i went into the bedroom with proton the ferocious (see pic at left) yelling "hey. woodpecker. hey woodpecker." (again.. sprinkled with the f-bomb) and proton barked and the booger flew away and this time stayed away. then later, we saw about 15 wild turkeys in the cow pasture next door. we'd been seeing turkeys in some fields on the way to our house, but not this close before. they look like dinosaurs. delicious, delicious dinosaurs. and apparently they fly. i tried to get pics and they promptly flew away and one perched in a tree. and i thought "huh... there's a turkey in a tree. weird. " and if a thought bubble could pop from mr. woodpecker's head i'm pretty sure he/she would be thinking the same thing. who knew turkeys hung out in trees? perhaps this bird assault has something to do with the heaps of bird food i dispersed in our backyard yesterday.... perhaps.

and yes... that's where we found proton last night. in the dark. on shoes.

alice in dampness

proton really outdid himself this time. like a labyrinth of string.

it has been hot enough here that we have made the move to sleeping in the basement. we are lucky enough to have a place that has a furnished basement and an extra bedroom down there and the temperature is a good 30 degrees cooler than it is on the first floor. however, i was a little nervous about sleeping down there for a couple of reasons: 1- major spider breeding ground with high probability of a mama spider crawling into my open mouth when sleeping, 2- it smells like a basement, 3- proton regularly craps on the floor about 10 seconds after hitting the cool air. we've been working on getting him to stop that, but it's real hit-or-miss. almost like some sort of comfort poop or something... like he's been holding on to it all day and only when he is in the sweet, refreshing air of the basement can he do what he needs to do. but... i did it. slept in the cellar. our friend dan was visiting, so that meant we were sleeping in the main room on the futon. in the middle of the night i had to get up and go to the bathroom. there were a couple of obstacles to me getting there: 1-the basement is DARK DARK LIKE A NIGHTMARE DARK and you can't see anything. not even your hand in front of your face. 2-i also am not so familiar with the layout, so i couldn't necessarily feel my way to the bathroom. 3-i am afraid of the dark. so i set out for bathroom, stumbling around, feeling for the coffee table.. yep.. there it is... then the chair next to it... yep, yep, got it. and all the while i've got my eyes closed... but i'm still kind of squinting. then i run into a wall. not only do i run into a wall, i try "focusing" my eyes in the dark and kind of started to panic when i realized i was shrouded in pure darkness. except for a tiny gleam of light coming from somewhere out of a parallel universe. i reached my hand towards that light but ran into more wall. then i actually put my hands UP and that's when i really started to lose it. my hands immediately hit the ceiling, which of course led me to think that either i was growing remarkably quickly and my shoulders would soon be crushed against the dropped ceiling, OR, even worse, the world around me was shrinking, OR, worst of all, i had somehow just got trapped in a box. i started to panic and had to close my eyes and focus on my breathing and remember that i was just in a basement and if i made it through five years of graduate school i can make it to the goddamn bathroom. and i did. successfully. somehow i found the door and made it out. yep. i'll be educating your children.

dead little....

it will never stop amazing me that abortion is still used as a major talking point in political debates. i don't know if you've been following the dialogue following the proposed changes in health care, but i have and it's outrageous. first there's the argument being made that the new health care plan will involve "death panels" that kill old people. i know. hilarious. then that was followed by the notion that not only will old people be led into the "no come back bingo parlor," but these death panels would also take down children with special needs. GERIATRICS and KIDS WITH DOWN SYNDROME. it's outrageous.

and then somehow abortion gets brought into it. there's the commercial with two "waiting for death-type" folks talking about how the old guy's surgery or viagra prescriptions or whatever aren't being paid for by the government, but isn't it a tragedy that the government is giving money to pay for abortions. ABORTIONS. who has abortions? nobody. i mean, yes, abortions happen and friends of mine have no doubt had them, but NO LADIES sit around discussing how awesome it was when lucy got an abortion... "and remember the rad tuesday that we took bethany in to get her abortion and she was totally sleepy on the way home? and then she called jeremy all drugged-out and they had post-op sex? wasn't that great? it's too bad more of us didn't get abortions." i can't imagine anything more difficult and heartbreaking than going through that whole process... and it's one thing to say big fat lies about government funding (which i've come to expect), but it's another to give the idea that women are jumping around, throwing their coke bottles and coat hangers into the garbage, hugging each other, and throwing RU-486 into each other's mouths. outrageous.

chemistry nightmare

i am slowly digging my way through my classroom at a college i will be teaching at this fall, and holy smokes is it a time capsule. i reckon the last time it was cleaned out was somewhere around 1954. it has been an absolute gold mine of relics, but a freaking NIGHTMARE of chemicals. fantastic relics include a poster of communist russia around 1971 complete with a charicature of Brezhnev with little devil horns, some sort of physiology machine that has lots of tubes and levers, and a pH machine that is the size of a medium sized television set. pics are soon to be posted. as for the chemicals, i don't know what to do with half the stuff... i found a bottle of something that had a syringe attached to it (what? weird.), about 50 bottles of iodine, and some sort of sleepy potion for Drosophila. the chemical shelves were full of these reddish power and i finally figured out that the powder was from the the metal brackets holding up the shelving-- the metal brackets that are RUSTING AWAY because of all the crazy ass chemicals mixing it up in there. a previously uninvestigated cabinet i opened up today was legitimately shocking. inside was every kind of terrible, powerful acid known to man (including formic, sulfuric, acetic, butyric), all from around 1963 and nestled next to huge vats of formeldehyde. the sulfuric acid "container" was complete rust. underneath all of these terrible chemicals was a bottle of some sort of organs and a huge jar full of very large insects. i'm guessing cicadas. i put stuff in front of it and decided to deal with it later. a room of nightmares and dreamscapes. including a drawer full of fetal pigs. things that belong in drawers: spoons, napkins, socks, shorts. NOT fetal pigs.

so pregnant and so gross

i have seen TWO pregnant women smoking in the past two days. immediately preceding my spotting of the two pregnant ladies was watching an old "Seinfeld' episode where george and elaine are visiting a psychic who happens to be pregnant and also happens to be sucking down a cigarette and elaine can't help but start reprimanding her for the pro-cleft palate behavior and they get kicked out and it's terrible. so i'm waiting at a light yesterday, look to my left, and there is a charming young lady, i'd say about four months into the gestation of the human parasite, pulling hard on a cigarette. hmmm, i know i shouldn't judge you but i definitely am. pick a different habit... just for a little bit. some sort of habit that doesn't result in deformation of a fetus. like bacci ball. or building pulley systems. so many options. and then today as i'm driving to the recyling center i pass another young lady, this time about eight months in, smoking. smoking a cigarette. eight months pregnant. i mean, you KNOW that's not good for this kid. and from what i see at the weekly Friday Night Live events, most of these developing blastocysts need all the help they can get. honestly. prego ladies smoking is a hilarious and quirky and dated phenomenon you see on "Mad Men" and laugh and laugh at how absurd it all it. because you know your kid with cleft palate isn't getting picked for the baseball team. unless he's a super rad catcher or something. and i think we all know that clefties are terrible at throwing from a squatting position. for reals.

photo ops for korea

that's my pea pod!

so it's been awhile since my last blog... with good reason. the professor and i took a little trip to maine and had some mad relaxing time. unfortunately, much of that relaxing time was spent locked up in the hotel room because my dog is out of control. i had the fantastic job of judging a science fair on monday night and whilst i was gone, proton barked for 3 hours straight. the hotel people had to let him out of the room, so when i came back he was behind the main desk helping check people in. then i had to talk to the manager. needless to say, he was not left alone again.

so let's talk about north korea. wow. i know many of you have heard my korea stories (south korea, that is) and of my own experience with kim jong-il's freaking insanity when dealing with his dreaded neighbor to the south, but this whole "hostages for photo ops" campaign is really taking his crazy rice brain antics to a new level. "well yes.. yes i will release the ladies... in return for an opportunity to get my photo taken with super sexy president clinton. and 50 disney films, 25 glass figurines of elvis, and 2 boxes of fruit roll-ups." did you see those photos? he's GLEAMING like this is his dream finally being realized. all i'm saying is watch out for a rash of kidnappings of americans. and kim jongil's outrageous demands of photos with michael jordan, diana ross, heidi klum, and Pinnochio to secure release of the prisoners.

and i'm teaching an anatomy & physiology course this fall and just found out i will be leading a dissection of a cat. a cat. a dreaded, dreaded, gross, wet, dead cat. i asked my boss if the cat still had hair on it and yes, yes it does. wet, gross, dead hair. i told her i will probably have to put a towel over their faces. i'm slowly working toward actually looking at them... there's a whole stack of them in the storage closet at the school. and buckets of organs. BUCKETS. i like small cells and physics. not dead cats with formeldehyde hair gel.

berry a no-no

i'll say it: i don't like raspberries. i kind of thought i did, and forced myself to eat quite a few of the little balls of tart off the berry bush, and tried to chow down some of the jam i made, but nope. they're gross. they're sour and gritty and altogether relatively nasty. which isn't to say i'm not going to stop picking them and making "delicious" treats out of them.... the only bad thing is i can't really be a sound judge of whether or not the treats are actually yummy. because to me they all are bursting with unbearable, disgusting sourness that makes my toes grip the floor. i'm almost getting legitimately mad at the bushes in my backyard and they're unforgiving production of the sour nugs. every day there are so many goddamn berries. and the funny thing is, i definitely remember liking them when i was a kid... when my brothers and sisters and i would be having our he-man/she-ra adventures and andrea and erica would be forced to be witches and we would get our dad's hedge clippers and make elaborate tunnels in the underbrush of our fort and when we needed sustenance we would head to the huge patch of raspberry bushes behind our house and pound them. into our faces. and they seemed great. but we were also taking shits in the woods and using leaves as toilet paper because our mom would lock the doors to the house. SO...... hard to take any food-related decisions we made at that point seriously. we also ate cat food. and tried to make "paste" out of acorns like the native americans might do.... or at least that's what i thought they did. have i mentioned how the most intense daydream of my childhood was that i would be kidnapped/rescued by an indian warrior and we would wear deerskins and draw crazy blue lines on our faces and talk about how lame white people were? yep. raspberries.

care for cairns

if you've never seen a cairn terrier, do yourself a goddamn favor and go find one. they are unbelievably cute little bear dogs that are stocky and jumpy and closely resemble the norwich. i want one... or at least to always be near one. and according to our favorite book The Care and Handling of Dogs:

The Cairn Terrier is a spicy, wide-awake chap, most lovable to those who are his and equally distant to those who are not. In short, he is typically Scotch throughout.

hmmm... interesting comparison to the scots. in fact, this guy makes quite a few comparisons in these pages that makes me think he's not so fond of the undecipherable folks.

in other news, i'm going for the record of how many schools one can teach at at the same time. i'm at three thanks to an offer today to teach an anatomy and physiology class at the community college of vermont. THREE. two catholics and one not-so-much. i guess i need one more secular boy to balance things out.

beetlejuice on my face

and continuing on in the "trapped" series. on this particular shot you'll see proton howling in anger as i snap his poor mug. i also received a wonderful treat in the mail from dr. j.p.: a book entitled The Care and Handling of Dogs, copyrighted 1928. i'm going to be adding little nuggets from this book because it's teeming with amazing descriptions of dogs and the like. today's is a couple of sentences from the chapter "The Selection of a Dog" and is in regards to the Mexican jumping bean of the dog world, the chihuahua.

These wee mites are extremely rare in this country owing to the decidedly delicate natures and the great amount of precaution and care necessary to breed them. They are over-sensitive to cold and one good draught may be the finish of these tiny morsels of dog flesh. (p.13)

.... tiny morsels of dog flesh. amazing.

and on to the japanese beetles. i don't like them. and it's not necessarily because they are decimating my raspberry bushes. as i'm picking berries i can hear these dull thuds, and it's the beetles falling off of whatever leaf they were one and landing on the one just below it... and then the one below that one... and so on. what kind of bug falls off leaves? aren't bugs sort of trained to do that in the first place? isn't there some sort of selection for those individual critters that manage to STAY ON? in addition, any attempt at in-air maneuvering is something akin to drunk kamikazes. if not free-falling, they're freaking out at the sight of my little white hand a'coming to pick berries and give their best attempt at flying. these guys don't fly. they jump as hard as they can and try to flap whatever wings they have and end up running into me, my hand, my hair, the nearest other japanese beetle, a raspberry, anything. they're not smart and it's like trying to defend yourself against a drunk, heavy-set college boy at a german beer house. but i may be figured out why their behavior is what it is. upon closer examination of the photo i snapped earlier i found some conspicuous items placed around the copulating critters. i don't know how i didn't see them earlier. take a look. those are empty cups i see. explains a lot.

puddin num num

i am rediscovering my love of pudding. not that that love ever necessarily left, but i am having a great time refamiliarizing myself with the delights of the warm, tasty treat. and i'm not talking about bullshit bill cosby jell-o nonsense... this is yummy, from scratch, buying the tapioca pearls and stirring for 30 minutes intense pudding making. i am even deviating from my normal chocolate-laden diet to delve into some of the forgotten favorites. butterscotch pudding made my tuesday night dinner and wednesday morning breakfast unforgettable. who knew the delicious butterscotchiness came from brown sugar and butter? not this pudding-slamming fool. it's like when i discovered that cumin is the key to chili. MINDBLOWING.

this evening: tapioca. i still remember the first time i had tapioca pudding in high school. i believe it was my sophomore year and i was absolutely devastated that it took fifteen years for that lumpy, bumpy, scrumptious delight to skip across my palate. turns out that the cooking process for tapioca pudding is a bit more arduous than you might think. i prepared myself for tonight's pudding feast by purchasing tapioca yesterday, but made the grievous and unforgivable mistake of buying the "quick cook" tapioca. I obviously had to fix that mistake by buying the for-real pearls today. after soaking the little pearls for 60 minutes in yummy soy milk, they were barely boiled up with vanilla and sugar and so much stirring over 30 minutes and indeed. i've got myself some homemade tapioca pudding. the caviar of gelatinous treats. every little ball of tappy goo an explosion of happy-time yummy flavor in my mouth. AND IT'S WARM. unbelievable.

swimming lessons

proton apparently doesn't like swimming. we went to the reservoir today with some friends and, since it was warm enough to actually venture into the water, i took the opportunity to get proton's little paws wet. he's been much better lately about getting into streams and creeks and such, so i was curious to see what he would do in the larger sized body of water. i heard a little splash and YAY! there was proton, swimming like a proper dog and everything. however, i think this splash wasn't due to any sort of jump by proton, but more accurately a slip and "oh nuts." i say this because he swam as fast as he could to the rocks on the shore and hooked his little paws into the crevices to hoist himself up, all panting and looking a little bit terrified. and the next few times i brought him down to the water he plopped his butt down super hard and refused to budge. so, i being the former lifeguard, gently picked him up and dropped his scrawny dog legs into the water and had him practice his doggy paddle. however, his paddling was super frantic and he was struggling the whole time to get away and i just kept saying "good job! good job!" and laughing super hard... and then the last time i dropped him into the water and he swam again... i was so excited for him!... but he was not pleased, all wet rat-like looking and breathing heavy.

but i think he and madison are starting to be friends. she even let him wear her milk bottle cap as a hat.

what the!? get the! how the!.. ugh....

this morning whilst raspberry picking i happened to notice something peculiar in the garden. oddly-shaped, deep indentations seemed to be everywhere. hmmm... it almost looks like someone has been digging up stuff... upon closer examination i realized that no, these are not the remnant holes of some wandering garden saboteur, but DEER TRACKS (see evidence at right). mother fucking deer tracks. not only am i now fighting the japanese beetles for the sweet raspberry gems, i'm fighting bambi, although i like to think of the deer as less like bambi and more like dirty, rabid destructor of garden joy (see rabid deer). and what is a deer going to do with raspberries? not make a delicious decadent raspberry sauce, i'll tell you that much. give it to thumper or whatever that craze-footed rabbit's name is? but this apparently makes proton a little less insane than i thought. he likes to bark at night at nothing in particular at all. well, turns out he may be barking at the predatory deer creatures lurking with their hooked hooves outside our windows, leering at our innocent snuggled-up bodies. i don't think there's something like a deer trap that's marketed, but i could perhaps rig up some sort of hammock-meets-spring loaded net trap.

and yes... proton found himself trapped in a new location today. wrapped around another poor bush. i can't help but think of him as the r. kelly of dogs. instead of being "trapped in the closet" he's "trapped around the nearest plant or post." and instead of getting peed ON, proton likes to be the one doing the peeing. proton likes hip hop, used to wear his hair in cornrows, and has an ongoing beef with Jay-Z. trapped in the garden.