Forth into the New Year

As I move forward into the new year, these are the verses in my mind:

"The LORD replied, 'My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.' Then Moses said to him, 'If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.'" Exodus 33:14-15

"Make your tent bigger; stretch it out and make it wider. Do not hold back." Isaiah 54:2a

Person of the Year - Who Me?!

Well, I sensed when I began my blog this year that good things would come, but to be selected as Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2006 was an unexpected honor!

As you can read on the cover, I was chosen because I now control the information age. I find it quite a responsibility and promise to do my best to do so in an ethical and professional manner.

I know it was a tough choice for them, which is why they did not have time to call me in for a photo-shoot. Cleverly they put a mirrored computer screen on the cover so I could see myself.

(Due to the aforementioned time constraints and my picture not appearing, you may want to click on the image here to enlarge it so that you can see my name as proof of this honor - although I'm sure you believe me without such proof being necessary.)

A Perfect Afternoon (PLUS!)

A perfect afternoon:

A long walk on a sunny winter day with my husband

A game with my son (while enjoying Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits - hey, gotta expose him to the classics!)

A joyful, lively dinner conversation as family

But wait! There's more! - perfect afternoon followed by a perfect (and LATE!)evening. Tonight was the end of the year celebration with wonderful book club companions and an eclectic collection of movies:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer documentary
1951 version of Scrooge
Neil Simon's "Murder by Death"

BONUS: My husband ordered a large book shelf for me today. Yea! More space for MORE books!

(Just kidding, Hubby!!)

















sort of ;-)









. . . and now at 1:10am, off to bed to be rested for our family excursion to Sonoma tomorrow.

Oh, and last night's Rook game with Mom, Dad, Tim, AJ, Hubby and I - and all the laughter - good stuff!

Now we just need some Pinochle in the mix! Let us know when you're ready, partners!

I love Christmas break!!! (and it came none too soon!)

PS Happy Birthday Brant, from Aunt Heidi!

Holiday Fun (Audio Quiz #2)

This holiday weekend it seems appropriate to post something light and fun, so here's Audio Quiz #2. This time each clip is from a movie. See if you can name the movie.

Movie 1

Movie 2

Movie 3

Movie 4

Movie 5

Movie 6

Movie 7

Movie 8

Movie 9

Movie 10

How did you do? Check "comments" section for answers.

(Click here to try Audio Quiz #1.)

Language: music and passion

". . . I see my father. I am seeing him at this moment; and I hear his voice saying words that I understood not, but yet I felt . . .

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn.

John Keats 1795-1821

I thought I knew all about words, all about language (when one is a child, one feels that one knows many things), but those words came as a revelation to me. Of course, I did not understand them. How could I understand those lines about birds' -- about animals' -- being somehow eternal, timeless, because they live in the present? We are mortal because we live in the past and in the future -- because we remember a time when we did not exist, and foresee a time when we shall be dead. Those verses came to me through their music. I had thought of language as being a way of saying thing, of uttering complaints, of saying that one was glad, or sad, and so on. Yet when I heard those lines (and I have been hearing them, in a sense, ever since), I knew the language could also be a music and a passion. And thus was poetry revealed to me."

from Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), This Craft of Verse

AfterMath

YAHOO!

I have completed the semester - and none too soon. My studies had begun to impact my family. As I was in a theorem-mumbling, study-induced stupor, my oldest son finally proclaimed that he is going to develop the "Nice Value Theorem" as opposed to the "Mean Value Theorem" I kept repeating. Of course all of my children laughed uproariously whenever they heard me mumbling the term "Lipschitz Condition."

Now that it is December 19 and less than a week before Christmas, I can begin preparing for the holidays!

Ho! Ho! Ho! and away I go!

Busy Signal

For the next 10 days, if you check my blog, you will just get this "Busy Signal."

I am entering the busy-zone of exam week (and a half) as both student and teacher.

My motto for the next 10 days is:

THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL US MAKES US STRONGER!

I imagine I'll be much stronger by December 19!

Hero Nomination

After class tonight I happened to walk out to the parking lot with a fellow student, and he shared with me something that happened in his class today.

He teaches in another town, one that has a reputation for crime, gang activity and families living in difficult and dysfunctional situations. In his class are many students who are especially low-achieving and have been dealt a pretty raw deal in life. One of his students had seen her father shot earlier this year.

He and I were discussing teaching as we walked, and in the middle of telling me about how he is approaching effective note-taking, he shared that he had been overcome today by a need to go deeper with his students as a group.

In the middle of class today he suddenly said, "Whatever you're doing right now, put it down. This is serious. I'm gonna go deep with you. I need your full attention up here. Do any of you play cards? Do any of you play domninoes?" When he got many "yes" responses, he asked, "What do you do when you get a really bad hand?"

The students were very honest with him. Some of the responses were:

"I give up."

"I get angry."

"I cheat."

"I quit."

He created a "web" on the board of the responses.

Then he looked at them and said:

"What do you do when you've been dealt a bad hand in life?"

Everyone got quiet.

He continued: "I know some of you wish you had a Dad. Others of you wish your mom and dad were together again. I know the situations many of you are in. I know what it is to have a hard life. One time my mom had no money and the cupboards were nearly bare. When she asked us what we wanted to eat, we said, 'Pancakes.' She didn't have any pancake mix, but she looked at what little was in the cupboard, and she made us pancakes out of whatever she could find, and you know what? They were the best pancakes we'd ever had."

Some of his students commented that maybe she had just been a really good cook. He responded that he didn't know about that, but that wasn't the point. She had looked in the cupboard, and, instead of looking at what wasn't there she figured out how to use what was there.

He then shifted the discussion back to games. He said, "You've given some comments about what you do when you get a bad hand at cards or dominoes. I play a lot of dominoes. If I get a bad hand, what I do is I start looking around. I look at what's out there. Instead of thinking of what I don't have, I look at what I do have and how it hooks in and how it can work together - that this connects here and then that will connect there and so on, and pretty soon I know how to play the hand, and I play the best I can."

He told me that by this time some of his students had begun crying and he began crying too. That must have been quite a sight because he is QUITE an imposing male presence (and I'm sure serves as a father figure to many of them).

He didn't share this to impress me. He shared this because his heart was overflowing after this had happened in his classroom today.

I know he's overloaded with work right now. Due to student population he was moved from 4th grade to 6th grade this year - all new curriculum to teach - VERY time consuming to prepare! He is going to school himself, working on a graduate degree at a campus more than an hour's commute from where he lives. He is concerned about teaching well, and he is concerned about his students' hearts.

He has no idea I have a blog nor that I am writing this, but I nominate sixth-grade teacher Eric C., a big man with a big heart, as a hero because in the midst of his own very busy life he is aware of other lives that need to be touched, and he reaches out and touches them. I can only imagine how different the lives of some of these students may turn out - differently than they could have turned out given their environment - because of his impact, care, and inspiration.

Kudos to you Eric!

Art in the Middle

It is a running joke with my students that I cannot draw a circle. Unfortunately it is often necessary for a math teacher to draw circles. The very best of my attempts end up looking like eggs - and really pathetic eggs at that! I just laugh right along with them and say, "There's a reason I teach math and not art!"

The artwork above is by my middle child, age 12 - merely some doodles he was doing in the car one day. It is clear that he gets his "art genes" from his father and not his mother!

Christmas Moved to December 3

Today was my day to sing in the Messiah, and as far as I'm concerned, that is my Christmas - and more - it is a taste of Heaven on earth.

Fall and Finitude

My oldest son commented recently, "Mom, it's hard to believe I've only experienced 14 autumns. It's just weird to think I can put a number on it like that."

It does seem rather strange to think of the finite number of times we have experienced any given season or event - whether it be autumn or summer or Christmas or Thanksgiving.

A. E. Housman (1859-1936) was thinking along the same lines over a century ago:

Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Always Ourselves We Find in the Sea

maggie and millie and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

millie befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

Happiness is . . .

. . . football on the beach














. . . running down dunes in childhood















. . . butterfly-filled skies
















. . . toes in the tide


. . . a hammock and a good book













. . . no rain while tent camping

Photos: Pismo Beach, Thanksgiving weekend 2006

All Fall Down

The beauty of my favorite season passes too quickly for me. The tree in our front yard produces brilliant yellow leaves that appear golden against the blue autumn sky. I can't get enough of that beauty. Sadly, it seems that in a week to 10 days after it reaches its full glory of color our tree is completely denuded of leaves, and only the bare skeletal branches remain.

Won’t you come and see
loneliness? Just one leaf
from the kiri tree.

—Basho, 1692

Kaselehlie!

Happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of Thanksgiving, I want to share one of my blessings with you: the laughter I enjoyed in reading the following post by my brother-in-law Dan who lives in Micronesia.

Among so many other blessings, I am thankful for Dan, for blogs which allow a sense of closeness even at great distance, for Dan's writing talent, and for the gift of laughter.

THE JAMES THURBER MAID SCHOOL

I gave Serlinda, my maid, some extra money yesterday for her birthday.

She responded with a full page note explaining that her birthday isn't until next week.

Within the note was this cryptic sentence:

"Also, Dan could you pay another bush for the toilet powl."

So, with respect to her request, I've been offering money to shrubs, but none of them have offered me powls of any kind.

Truth

God can make use of all that happens. But the loss is real.

from Perelandra by CS Lewis 1898-1963

The Color of Water

The universe is an amazing place, but what I think of as one of the most fascinating marvels may seem quite commonplace to most people.

When I think that God came up with the idea of water, I am awed. Have you ever sat by a river and just contemplated the nature of water? Who would have thought of such a thing?

There is a color in water at certain times in certain places that is my favorite color. I don't have a name for it. It's not really blue, and it's not really green, and it's not really blue-green. It's translucent and sort of aquamarine but not quite aquamarine either. It's bright but not flashy; it has depth, but it's not dark. I know it when I see it, but it is not something I can always find when I go out looking for it.

I guess that's the way with a lot of things in life. The best things are often the things that show up by surprise and take your breath away but can't necessarily be found when you seek them out.

Back to the Future?

I'm already IN the future.

. . . at least according to my youngest son (9). I'm trying to figure out what that means, but there is no sense asking him, because he doesn't engage in discussion about his comments, which is but one of his many quirks.

Context:

My youngest has always had quite a sense of humor, and that has now been combined with a very hyper stage that he has recently entered. He was being particularly hyper and funny a the dinner table the other night - a bit too much so, which caused me to comment that I could not wait to meet his future wife, who would certainly be a very special woman!

I then extended it and said I couldn't wait to see all of us in the future; he then made the statement, "Mom, you're already IN the future."

Coming from him, I don't know how to take that.

It might mean I'm "old" and as an adult am already in MY future. It might have a more philosophical meaning as in, "A moment has passed since you stated that, so you have moved into the future."

With him, you never know, and that is why I have to ponder this. He is the same child who at age 7 said, "Mom, it's really hard to think about when God started." On another day he began another statement by dismissing it before saying it: "Never mind, Mom. I was just going to ask you what you thought it would feel like not to exist, but then I realized I wouldn't be here to feel what it was like not to exist."

Having a bent towards the metaphysical myself, I get very excited about such ideas and want to converse with him, but when I ask him leading questions after such statements he will not go further with it, which drives me crazy! I sometimes think God is teasing me by having sent me a son whose mind is intrigued by the same kinds of thoughts as mine but who is unwilling to go beyond a single comment.

To further illustrated his personality, here is his idea of posing for a photograph:
Should he marry, his wife will certainly be a special person - as is he!

Back to "The Future:"

. . . was my son calling me old or was he being philosophical? Since he'll never tell, I think I'll assume the latter.

temporary wierd stuff

Something is goofy with blogger. I've been trying to post lovely pictures to my last entry ever since I put it up. I've finally made some progress trying to get images to appear using html on my own rather than using blogger's non-functioning template, but you can see the messed-up results below, and right now I have to put fixing that in a holding pattern to get back to my homework.

I want these lovely pictures to illustrate the timelessness I spoke of, but I remain trapped in time . . .

. . . so for now, back to my research paper on what can be done to fix all the ills in math education in America!

Stay tuned (but it might be a while!)

Post Script:

Um . . . never mind. I got it to work. Procrastinating from writing a paper allows one to accomplish many things! I still haven't solved the ills of mathematics education in America, but now that the images are up (although somewhat imperfectly) I'll either have to get back to my paper or find some housework to procrastinate with instead. (I'm thinking the ills of math education in America will be solved first! - sorry Dave :-)

Eternal Now

Have you ever had such an experience of transcendence that you felt you had to say to the world, “You’re going to have to hold my place until I get back because I’m totally out of here?”

I think, if we are TRULY living beings, for each of us there is (or can be) something that brings us into the eternal now, something that takes us out of the world but at the same time makes us one with The World - with people of all times and places - with the heart of all things.

My transcendent experience is annually parceled out to me once a week for 5 weeks in November and December as our little local oratorio society practices and then presents Handel's Messiah.
















For me it is the very real presence of Heaven on earth. As I participate I feel I leave my small world and in doing so become part of something much larger. I become part of all creation, of the very rocks of which would cry out if we were not praising God. I feel I become a part of every person who has ever sung this piece and that I become a part of every place where it has ever been sung. I feel like I am a part of every other person singing with me in that sanctuary as our different voices become one telling the story of the reconciliation of God with man, of a love for us so profound that God gave His own life to reconcile us to Himself, and of a time when we will all be in an eternal now in His presence.



Time and space disappear for me.

I’ve heard there is no time in Heaven, because Heaven is outside of time, so I imagine this is what Heaven will be like.

Today, as our annual practices began once more and I exited my small world and its concerns and entered paradise I made the same request as e.e. cummings (1894-1962)makes in his poem: "really unreal world,will you perhaps do the breathing for me while i am away?"

as any(men's hells having wrestled with)
man drops into his own paradise
thankfully
whole and the green whereless truth
of an eternal now welcomes each was
of whom among not numerable ams

(leaving a perfectly distinct unhe;
a ticking phantom by prodigious time's
mere brain contrived:a spook of stop and go)
may i achieve another steepest thing--

how more than sleep illimitably my
--being so very born no bird can sing
as easily creation up all sky

(really unreal world,will you perhaps do
the breathing for me while i am away?)

Is there something that makes you truly alive, pulls you out of your little world, and leaves you so breathless that the world has to go on doing your breathing for you until you return?

I hope so. There’s nothing like it!

Some High Window

who are you, little i

(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window;at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way)


e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

AproPOE

What better day than Halloween to post pictures of the graveyard where Edgar Allen Poe, that inimitable master of the macabre, is buried? HAPPY HALLOWEEN!











I've had a fascination with Poe ever since reading The Tell Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado in high school, seeing The Fall of the House of Usher and later memorizing The Raven . . .

"and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted . . . NEVERMORE."

I never imagined I would have a chance to visit Poe’s gravesite, but thanks to Dan and Rohaizad I had that chance this summer – thanks guys for providing reason to go to Baltimore (the US premier of your wonderful musical) and for the tour and time together the next day – great stuff! (So, how do you celebrate Halloween in Micronesia?)

Laughing on Glory's Side

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side, and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!

It's hard to believe it's been two years today. We're missing you Dad and thinking of you, but we know you've flown to Jesus and are laughing on Glory's side!

"Untitled Hymn" lyrics by Chris Rice 2004

Life Exists and You Are Here

Life exists

and identity.

The powerful play of life goes on, and YOU may contribute a verse.

I'd been thinking for a while of writing about poetry and its place and why it touches me so deeply - wanting to help others be so profoundly touched. I was watching "Dead Poet's Society" last night, and I was so struck by the following lines on so many levels that I want to write it down for myself and my readers.

We do not read and write poetry because it is cute.

We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion

Medicine, law, business, engineering; these are noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love; these are what we stay alive for.

To quote from Whitman:

“O me, O life of the questions
Of these recurring.
Of the endless trains of the faithless.
Of cities filled with the foolish
What good amid these,
O me, O life?”

Answer:

"That you are here.
That life exists
And identity.
That the powerful play
Goes on,
And you may contribute
A verse."

"That the powerful play goes on, and YOU may contribute a verse."

What will your verse be?

Walt Whitman 1819-1892
Dead Poet's Society (1989) written by Tom Schulman; directedy by Peter Weir

"Real"ity Check

WARNING: This post contains material which the surgeon general has determined to be a health hazard to math-phobes due to its EXTREMELY FRIGHTENING nature. (Then again we are only 5 days away from Halloween, so perhaps this can serve as a good fright warm-up!)

I'm talking about "real" again. This class is abstraction built upon abstraction in the form of the theory needed to bring rigor to the underpinnings of the calculus.

Does anyone reading this see the above notes as concrete?

The reason I titled this post "reality check" is because the author of this textbook needs a "real"ity check. Here is a sentence from the text that made me laugh out loud:

"A thorough understanding of these topics on the real line will prove invaluable when they are encountered in MORE ABSTRACT SETTINGS."

Um . . . if this isn't abstract, what is it?!

And to think my algebra students ask me where they are going to use ALGEBRA in REAL LIFE!

PS Antonio, the last time I posted about "real" you asked why I only included a "sentence" rather than a "paragraph." Here's your paragraph, and here's a little pop quiz to keep you sharp. What does the "paragraph" here prove?

All Things

I have many favorite trees. Rocks, trees and water have always been very restorative to my spirit. In contemplating them, I find myself ministered to in very specific ways.

I've watched the progress of this little tree over the course of many years, and I had always felt sorry for it, for what it had to overcome to grow, for the fact that it had been bent by the presence of the huge boulder in its way, for the barren place on which it is growing, for all its obstacles.

It finally dawned on me that as this tree grows, it is going to push that boulder over! It is this little tree that is going to triumph! This reminds me of Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

Semi-related comment: this boulder reminds me of La flèche de Zénon by René Magritte.

Bee Buzz

So, are you one of those people who can't stand to see "Rite" in the name of a company or "lite" on food packaging, or are you one who spells "night" as "nite." Do you prefer "thru" to "through" or does it make you want to tear your hair out? Is "enuf" enough, and is "enough" too much?

With the advent of instant messaging, people are moving more and more towards simplified spelling - very simplified. Do you think "u" will eventually replace "you" or that "r" will replace "are?"

Are you aware such changes have taken place all along? Do you wish we could go back to "dialogue" rather than today's accepted "dialog?" Do you prefer "colour" or "color," "behaviour" or behavior," "shoppe" or "shop?"

There are those that advocate a total overhaul of spelling in the English language. Usually there is a spike in articles about this issue around the time of the National Spelling Bee. Here is what one had to say:

Those in favor of simplified spelling say children would learn faster and illiteracy rates would drop if words such as "bomb," "comb" and "tomb" were spelled the way they sound. Opponents say a new system would make spelling even more confusing.

Eether wae, the consept has yet to capcher th publix imajinaeshun.

When "say," "they" and "weigh" rhyme, but "bomb," "comb" and "tomb" don't, wuudn't it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound?

Studies have been done that show that children in countries whose languages are more strictly phonetic learn to read faster than children learning English, yet so much meaning in words is in their roots, prefixes and suffixes. What would we lose and what would we gain in making sudden radical change? How would this impact individuals who already know how to read and write? Would all literature suddenly have to be republished with the new spelling (and at what cost)?

Yet we do now spell "doughnut" as "donut." "Centre" and "theatre" have reversed their final letters. In losing their u's, have "honour" and "labour" lost their "use" too, or are they still just as "useful?" Is anyone upset by the changes that have already taken place?

I, for one, am not ready for a spelling overhaul, but if you are all for it, you are in good company. Past proponents of this change include: Andrew Carnegie, John Dewey, Teddy Roosevelt, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster and Mark Twain (and this was LONG before the advent of IM'ing!).

Wat du u theenk? Wae n bi posting ur comment.

Hav a gr8 day!

Friends are Friends Forever

"Friends are Friends Forever" (Michael W. Smith)A great thing in life is how true friends can pick up right where they left off even if they have very different lives than 20+ years ago when they met in college, even if they live thousands of miles away, even if they see each other very infrequently. Whenever they get back together again it's like they've never been apart. It’s also cool to be able to support each other in prayer, which too reaches across the miles.Another great thing about true friends is that you can generate so much fun just by being together you can experience that incredible emotion of laughing so hard you nearly pee!

Those are the good times!

Thanks for the good times! Thanks for being there in the bad times! Thanks for your recent prayers!

Thanks for everything buddies!

Locating Atlantis

Atlantis: myth or reality?

There are actually scholars on both sides of the debate. The origin of information about Atlantis is in the works of Plato. Some think he created the idea of Atlantis (a thriving culture that was destroyed through the wrath of the gods) merely as a literary device to prove a point, but others scholar contend that the way Plato writes of Atlantis indicates fact not fiction. This is because his writing incorporates far more detail than would be necessary for a mere literary device and also because he has the characters in his writings (called Dialogues) refer to the story of Atlantis as "genuine history."

Well, whether fact or fiction, where would this "lost continent" have been? There is much speculation. The Mediterranean Island of Crete has been mentioned as a possibility because of the sudden disappearance of the Minoan culture there. The Mediterranean Island of Santorini, which was destroyed by a catastrophic volcano has also been suggested - as have the Bahamas, at whose surrounding ocean floor massive stone walls have been found.

The Bahamas just seem too far from the ancient world to be a possibility, and Crete and Santorini don't seem to make sense according to Plato's writings. Plato writes that Atlantis was beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" (what we know as the Straits of Gibraltar - the entrance to the Mediterranean). From Plato's geographical perspective, it makes sense that something "beyond" the Straits of Gibraltar would have been in the Atlantic Ocean ( . . . hmm, check out the name), not inside the Mediterranean. If you sail away from the Mediterannean and head west, you encounter the archipelago of the Azore Islands. This is another site that has been the focus of speculation, and, of course I have personal reasons for leaning towards this location. Could these islands (one of which is pictured here) be the mountain peaks that remain of Atlantis?

Literary device or history? You decide.

Get Real!

My posting pace has certainly slowed in the face of my studies! I'm about to head to campus for my first mid-term in Real Analysis (affectionately known as "Real").

In a few hours I will know for sure whether or not I "get real!"

As I've studied, I've actually come to have a favorite line from my notes, that I'm sure you would love to know about. Here it is:

I've always used the fact that math is a language, often quite a foreign language, as a way to reassure my own students that I understand what they are going through and to encourage them in how to approach it. Here is proof positive that math is a (foreign) language. It's a good thing I LOVE languages!

Now it's YOUR turn to "get real!" Try to translate that line. Oh, come on, give it a try. I won't test you on it! Click on comments to see the translation into English.