continuing from the previous post:

the department in which i work is highly dysfunctional. thats no surprise. anyone affiliated knows its true. as a result, i find virtually no one within my department with whom to express myself and grow professionally.

now the theme of the year is "professional learning community" and collaboration, which is wonderful. the collaboration and the community depend on the professionalism and that is what we lack. as a department we lack professionalism in dealing with each other. as a department we lack professionalism in the ability to accurately assess our strengths and weaknesses. as a department we lack the professionalism to pull the log out of our own eyes, metaphorically speaking.

our strengths as a department are to bite each others backs, to inadequately self reflect and self assess, and to pass the buck of blame as a hot potato.

so i, who have returned to work within this department after a year of sabbatical, came refreshed and armed with an artillery of strategies and research to apply to impact student achievement have found no welcome reception.

thus, weekly meetings intended to be periods of collaboration on how to identify what we wish students to learn, how to consider ways of helping them learn, how to determine whether they are learning, and what to do when they dont learn always degenerate into the same discussion.

within a few minutes the most vocal of our members end up talking about how students are unmotivated and refuse to complete their homework and dont remember anything from one class to the next. in the end we all leave frustrated and somewhat belligerent.

it is for this reason that i said i was in desperate need of some inspiration, which i finally got...

why is it that the simple and obvious answers are so elusive?

but i found it and its revolutionizing me. i had something of a personal enlightenment today. and believe you me: i was desperately in need of one. this renaissance of sorts has even allowed me to not mind living and working in california, rather than north carolina, for the present. i trust that aspect will revert.

so this will be a long one, which I shall deliver in chapters, so to speak. if i had my wits about me i would do a little christopher nolan here and tell this story in reverse so that when it is all typed it will appear top to bottom in the order in which it is to be read.

but i have no such wits about me. more about all this in the next installment. and this time, it will be soon.

you believe me dont you? i dont blame you.

my unpublished carvings. not anywhere near as carvalicious as the danes. but whatever. maybe you shouldnt expect so much from the blind.



Below is a carving from three years ago. twas surposed to be edward scissorhands.

so i promised myself id start this up again when i go back to the classroom in august. but im what you might not call an overachiever, so ill start now. or whatever.

anyways, i definitely think that my good fortune last sunday evensong merits a return to the blog.

rat-a-tata-tat crash:

i saw debbie gibson live and in concert. and it was sweet. i never thought id actually get to cross that one off my perennial to-do list. and in case youre wondering, the years haven't been cruel to ol' deb, but i wouldnt say theyve been all to kind either. honestly, a shorter longer skirt and a non-stretch top could do a body good, if you know what im saying.

what's next?

congrats to me on successfully reducing my readership to 0. i dont even read what i type, which is why there may be a misspeling arror that doesnt goet caught. there sure is less preassure on a person when he doesnt have to worry about whos reading. maybe its time to start sharing some secret passions taht id bee worried about people reading. dang i such at typing. hahaha.

lets see...secret passions. rats im all ablank.

so lets change the topic: first id like you to help me think of ten good reasons why i should move to north carolina. and perhaps ten why i should not. then ill weigh the ten mano a mano and see what pans out. hows that for mixing my metaphors.

on another strand i was selected yesterday, due no doubt to a stellar two paragraph essay, to become a campus representative for card player magazine. it matters not that im not actually a student. the point is that i can and will exploit both friend and acquaintance for the mutual advantage of card player mag. HERE'S THE PITCH: so if you would like to receive card player's poker newsletter online, let me know and i will arrange it. quite in earnest, it is a stellar mag and while the free swag will be nice, i do think they have a worthwhile product that will sell itself. im hoping for greater access to tourneys and such.

speaking of which, tonight is my biggest tourney buy in. 45$ dont seem like much, but im not all fool. i am well aware that a person needs to lose his share of money before his research and practice have effect. so i try to keep my tourneys to 35$ in casinos and $20 or whatever at the home tourney. im counting on there being a lot of suckers. but you know how it goes: if you can spot the sucker at the table....

i find it humerous that cliché-ers make it a practice of beginning clichés and not finishing. is there no shame in cliché-making? how cliché is it to begin a cliché and not finish it? this motivated an early practice of mine of creating new clichés based loosely on existing clichés. the funny part is that people seldom call me on them. they just think i got them wrong, i surpose.

what was i talking about? i think i was going to mention that it is not cliché, simply true, that at the poker table if you're not getting a read on someone, then they are getting a read on you. so wish me luck and courage.

that was surposed to be the end of the post, but (1) i have no readership to worry about boring and (2) it was way too danrather to end with courage and i wont do it. id rather end with soapbubble, cus i like that word. soapbubble.

He Said What?!

National Public Radio program Fresh Air reran an interview with John Travolta from a year or so ago, as well as an interview with Elmore Leonard, author of Get Shorty and newly released Be Cool.

To conclude the interview, host Terry Gross asked Travolta what she was afraid might be a strange or uncomfortable questions. Travolta was not at all uncomfortable by the question. It went like this:

Gross: "You’re considered very sexy… a sex symbol in a way. Does being the subject of a lot of people’s fantasies…does that make sex any more pleasurable? Does that translate to real life?"

Travolta: "I've always been a sexual person, anyway… In life I feel that way; but in acting, I only feel that way if a character feels that way."

This wasn't quite what Terry Gross was getting at so she rephrased and asked again.

Gross: "Does it make you feel sexier in real life knowing that a large part of the public finds you so sexy?"

Travolta: "I don’t know because I think I felt this way before the fame. See what I mean? I never needed the movies to feel sexy."

Oh my!