Your Turn to Weigh in

No, don't worry, I'm not talking about a scale! (After birthday cake this weekend, I'm certainly not going anywhere near a scale!)

What I am talking about is hearing your ideas.

I was asked tonight if the following poem is a riddle and if so what the answer is.

Poetry can be interpreted different ways by different people. What do you think? Is this a riddle? If so, what do you think the answer might be? Is it not a riddle? If not, what do you think the meaning could be? (This is not a test, and I am not an English teacher. There is no wrong answer here, so don't stress, OK?)

The Bee is not afraid of me.
I know the Butterfly.
The pretty people in the Woods
Receive me cordially --

The Brooks laugh louder when I come --
The Breezes madder play;
Wherefore mine eye thy silver mists,
Wherefore, Oh Summer's Day?

(Emily Dickinson #111 c.1859)

(Context for question: My youngest niece will be reciting this poem Friday, March 2, and it would be nice for her to have some background on it if she is asked questions. Can you help her out? If you know me and are shy about commenting on a blog, feel free to email instead. Thanks in advance to all responders.)

End of an Era

Well, our last single-digit child just hit double digits today. Now we are a household of double-digiters until one of us hits the century mark.

Happy 10th birthday Caleb!

Quote for Thought (1)

We know too much and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for our religion, and so is our religion.

(T. S. Eliot 1888-1965)

Practical Joke

Look, I was hungry, alright?!

Soup sounded good, but you need quite a bit of soup to fill you up if you're hungry, especially if the soup you have left over is just chicken broth and vegetables.

My family had already eaten, so I had a choice in how to prepare this meal for myself. I could heat it up in a pan and then serve it to myself small bowl after small bowl - thus making a pan, a ladle, a bowl and a spoon dirty - OR I could heat it up in a large bowl and eat it out of that - fewer dirty dishes, same amount of food. That sounds practical to me.I thought nothing of it, but when I sat down at the table my husband was absolutely aghast and got out a camera to take a picture of the shocking sight.

I thought it was practical; he thought it was hillarious, so there you have it, a "practical joke"!

(I must admit, I do look like quite a glutton, but, come on, it's just chicken broth and vegetables! Besides, I'm a mathematician. Finding short-cuts is what math is all about! It's what I do! You got a problem with that - meet me outside! I'll be there just as soon as I'm done with my soup.)

My Colorful Life

At the end of November I was bemoaning the loss of color with the fall of leaves. Yet by early February my daffodils had begun to blossom. What a great place to live! Color to color -- vibrance of fall to brilliance of spring -- with only a brief interlude of barrenness to help us appreciate it even more!

In-tree-ging

There's just something I love about trees!
I can't help but be "INTRIGUED".

When I saw this tree on my brother-in-law Dan's blog, I asked if I could share it on mine too. He sees this every day on his way to work (in Kolonia, Pohnpei, Micronesia).

He feels it looks like the tree is trying to crawl over the wall.

What do you think?

(All sorts of possible movie scripts are running through my mind -- one possible title: "The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth." Look out! The trees are claiming their inheritance! Another title could simply be "The Trees" -- kind of like Hitchcock's "The Birds." Then again, perhaps this is a kind, gentle tree like Tolkien's Ents. I hope so!)

To read about life in the tropical paradise of Pohnpei check out Kaselehlie!

To view previously posted tree pictures, click here or here or here.

A Post in Four Parts

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

I have a LOT to share today, and I'm going to put it all in one post: a post in four parts.

PART 1: NEW VALENTINE'S TRADITION

Move over Christmas stockings! My youngest son -- whose "love language" is definitely "giving and receiving of gifts" -- has come up with a new holiday tradition: Family Valentine's Bags.

For the last few days we have had lunch-sack sized brown paper bags scotch-taped to the wall of our living room, one for each of us, for the insertion of Valentine's gifts (as bags got heavy they fell, but that problem could be solved by more and more -- and more and more -- -- and more and MORE scotch tape!).

We have done this for a couple of years now, and I think it is here to stay in our household. Perhaps others of you will want to add this to your holiday traditions.

PART 2: SURPRISE!!

Hello baby!!

I found out today that my "nephew to be" is a "niece to be" -- as far as can be told right now. Best wishes you guys! You are in our thoughts and prayers daily!

PART 3: IN OTHER NEWS

Well, it really is true that people who choose to do stupid things blow it for others.

My son who is a freshman in high school has had bus service -- to within a bit less than a mile of our home -- all year. In the last few weeks more kids than usual have been riding the bus. One of these students, a girl, was misbehaving so badly and would not obey the bus driver at all to the point that the bus driver had to turn the bus around, return to school, and radio ahead to have school officials there to meet her and escort her off the bus. Now, to reduce the number of students riding (and get rid of her and the few problem students who have recently begun riding), a strict three-mile policy is being enforced. That means only students who live 3 miles or further from the school have bus service.

The policy has actually always been "on the books" but had not been enforced, as the bus was quite empty, and there had been no problem until recently. Now that this girl and a small number of others have chosen to be a problem, the policy will be VERY strictly enforced.

We live 3.1 miles from the main entrance of the school, so we should still have bus service, right?

Wrong.

The official measuring is being done from the "nearest 'safe' entrance" to the school from a student's home. According to the bus service, which sent out a truck to measure the mileage from our home today, we live 2.96 miles from the "nearest 'safe' entrance" -- and NO, they don't round up.

This "nearest 'safe' entrance" is actually not an entrance if you are coming from our home. There is a median dividing the road, which means that particular driveway cannot be entered from this direction. In other words, it is not actually an "entrance" from where we live. There is no crosswalk near this "safe entrance," and there is no sidewalk on the school-side of that road -- a very busy road, I might add. To cross from the other side to this entrance, my son would have to jaywalk, because it is also not at a corner. I'm wondering by whose definition this is "safe."

The bus service has let us know this is the city's problem for not putting in a round-about or crosswalks and gave us numbers to call the city (yeah, I'm sure the city is going to claim responsibility and put in an expensive round-about right away upon receiving our call!). When a student is hit by a car, I think there is going to be enough problem to go around -- and if that does happen, finger-pointing is not going to fly with the public.

All this thanks to the girl who was being a problem on the bus (whatever happened to disciplining the person/s who is/are being a problem rather than making others pay a price?). Her problem is now a problem for many.

What a pain.

Hopefully this problem, whomever it belongs to, will not go beyond merely being a "pain" to actually meaning injury or worse to a student.

PART 4: BACK TO "REAL"ITY

My spring semester began today, so I am back to reality - specifically "Real Analysis II" affectionately known as "Real 2." (See below for a snippet from my notes today; I put this part of the post at the bottom, because I was afraid it would scare people off if I put it at the top.)

Another aspect of this semester will be doing a lot of reading and research and writing a book length manuscript in my class "Mathematical Logic and the Arts." I'm going to be plenty busy this semester . . . but good busy!

Out of the Mouths of "Babes"

This morning after church I saw two girls, somewhere between ages 6 and 8, walk arm in arm onto the sidewalk from the grass area.

I gleaned quite a practical fashion tip as one said to the other in an advisory tone:

"On Sundays when you plan to jump on the grass after church, you really shouldn't wear high heels."

God's Language

"Philosophy is written in this grand book - I mean the universe - which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it."

"Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe."

(quotes: Galileo Galilei 1564-1642)

(photo: Heidi 1987 Battle Creek, MI)

Pay it Forward

This goes from silly to serious, but it has a point. I don't know how to write about it without stringing all these thoughts together, so hang on for the ride!

A dear friend of mine traveled to England in the fall. She knows what an anglophile I am, and when she returned home she sent me an email with a photo attached. I downloaded the attachment with great anticipation. I assumed it would be a picture of Westminster Abbey or some other particular cathedral or castle that I love - or perhaps the home of one of my favorite authors. The following picture was what I opened:

WHAT?!

When I first opened it I was shocked - no castle? no cathedral? not even a hedgerow? A car?! Then I looked more closely. Clearly she is reading my posts and knows how special the Azores are to me! It's such a cool thing to have friends who really know you and pick up on it when something is special to you, even when they are not with you - even something as obscure as a taxi in England with advertising for the Azores on it!

I was touched.

This surprise of a picture brought to mind two more serious things that have touched me very deeply this year. One of these is that while this friend was in England, she lit a candle for me in Westminster Abbey and prayed for me, remembering a burden I've long carried. Another dear friend visited Israel last year and wrote my name on a slip of paper and put it in the wailing wall also with a prayer for full freedom for me.

Both have made me feel my burden lessened by their care and carrying it with me and bringing it before God for me in very special ways.

I'm using a lot of words, but these actions have touched my soul beyond the ability of my words to express.

As these have come to mind, I have a strong sense of wanting to "pay it forward." I want to take what they have done for me and pass it on by doing the same for others. I want to remember those in my life who are carrying burdens of any kind, to think of them, and to remember them before God, and, in so doing, to help them carry their burden.

If you are someone I know of who is carrying a burden, know that I am thinking of you in this way and remembering you before God in my prayers.

If you feel so lead, I'd like to ask you to consider "paying it forward" for others too. What a precious thing we can do for each other!

On the Lighter Side

I taught him to play Magic before he could read the cards. He now regularly bests me at the game. I taught him to play chess when he was 4. At 14 he is now a far superior player then I ever was or will be. My last hold-out was my record time solving the Rubik's Cube. I can no longer solve one at all, but when they first came out in the 1980's, my record time was one minute fifteen seconds. As of yesterday, my oldest son has bested me there as well with a time of one minute flat (and he is improving daily!). Kudos to you Anthony!

Themes and Variations (Commentary)

There were a couple of collaborative poems that particularly caught my attention that I will be commenting on as promised.

One of these is a variation on Line One:

I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But rather the clay's form from the potter's toil
Demonstrating the power and creativity of the potter's hand.

What caught my attention is that the outcome of this poem is a celebration of life as created by God. Surprisingly the "seed" here came from a poem celebrating death. The first line is by Sylvia Plath. Her poem begins as follows: "I am vertical, but I would rather be horizontal. I am not a tree with my root in the soil." The second to last line is: "And I shall be useful when I lie down finally." Sadly, she accomplished lying down finally and horizontally by her own hand on February 11, 1963 at the age of 30.

Given the origin of this first line of this poem, I was amazed at how it was translated from a poem celebrating death to a poem celebrating life.

All of the starting lines I gave in this collaborative project were from published works, references for which you can find in the comments section of my last post. For the most part I chose lines out of the middle of poems so they would not be familiar, because my project required that I have these created as blindly as possible.

Another result I wish to comment on began with a line from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I LOVE the ending of this poem, so I could not resist using one of the lines, even though I was afraid it might be familiar. I just had to see what would become of mermaids singing. Here is the end of Eliot's poem from which I took the line:

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

(Whether or not you understand what you just read - and I'm not so sure I do, take a moment to read it again just for its music; read it aloud. It can be quite haunting in a lovely way if you allow yourself to take it in for its music alone.)

As I said, I just had to see what people would do with the line about the mermaids. Here are two of the results:

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Though to do so ought to be within reach
I choose to watch TV instead


I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Like crashing waves upon a beach
What is done and what is said.

Regarding the first variation, I wasn't sure what to think when I received the concluding line about TV. At first it felt sarcastic - which is fine, this was all free game, but when it was all put together, it reminded me of a poem by Auden called The Labyrinth, which speaks of trying to figure out this maze called life. At the end of the poem, the protagonist looks up at the sky out of the tall hedge maze and wishes he were a bird to whom such thoughts must seem absurd. Sometimes we get so messed up trying to figure life out, we really do have to take a break and just sit down and watch TV! (Or look at nature and wish we were birds!)

Regarding the second, Auden comes to mind as well. The last line contains the words done and said. There is a line elsewhere in Auden where he says, "Sighs for follies said and done twist our narrow days." I'd always thought of mermaid's voices as being melodic, but here I think they are singing a cacophony of frustrating memories of what what the "author" and others have done and said - painful memories of things done and said that just won't stop crashing in the mind like waves crashing on the beach.

OK, maybe it is time to go watch some TV :-)

Once again, my thanks for all who participated in this collaborative effort. I'm impressed with you all!

Themes and Variations (Full Results)

These are the results of the collaborative poetry effort of my last post. From the 10 lines I posted as seeds, 10 poems and 14 variations grew.

If you contributed a line, see if you can find it and read the final result containing your line.

Each of the ten initial lines is from a published work. See if you can guess the author. Answers are in the comments section.

In a few days I'll post comments on a couple of the following that have some special qualities. Again, my thanks for your help on this project!

ONE

I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But rather the clay's form from the potter's toil
Demonstrating the power and creativity of the potter's hand.

I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But rather the clay's form from the potter's toil
Be something he carefully pondered and planned.

I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But a derrick bursting with oil
Not to be held in one’s hand.

TWO

At times you sink, you fall
At times you are upheld
At all times you can hear him call
My strength and power with yours to weld

At times you sink, you fall
At times you are upheld
like Churchhill or DeGaulle
Great men by greater forces felled.

THREE

Bells that toll across the meadows
Flutes that pipe the Shepherds home
Can also call archers to their bow
And call the dead from beneath their loam

Bells that toll across the meadows
Flutes that pipe the Shepherds home
Sheep that bleat each for their fellows
Are drawn together as they roam.

Bells that toll across the meadows
Flutes that pipe the Shepherds home
Can also call archers to their bow
The ladies and gentlemen stand in a row.

Bells that toll across the meadows
Flutes that pipe the Shepherds home
Can also call archers to their bow
And that concludes this telephone poem.

FOUR

Earth does not understand her child
For her child is not her own but God’s
He made them all, both tame and wild
He made us all, the normals and odds.

FIVE

The Truth’s superb surprise
Is hidden like the noon day sun
No matter the effort or how many tries
He always manages to get his work done.

The Truth’s superb surprise
Is hidden like the noon day sun
No matter the effort or how many tries
It can do naught but shout to us: Run!

The Truth’s superb surprise
Is hidden like the noon day sun
When threatening clouds its glow denies
And former brightness now is done.

SIX

You jumped because you feared to fall, and thought
Let us meet death on our own terms
With each breath, our life dearly bought
Oneness with all life, even worms.

You jumped because you feared to fall, and thought
Let us meet death on our own terms
knowing it is what we sought
But that knowledge was filled with vile germs.

SEVEN

To see in death sleep, and in the sunset
The beginning of a the nightmare time
Of doubt and fear and cold regret
The time has come to end this rhyme.

To see in death sleep, and in the sunset
The beginning of a the nightmare time
The blind journey through the upset
and find tranquility most sublime.

EIGHT

One luminary clock against the sky
Ticking away our final days
As heaven waits for us, we all must die
But first we must come through life’s maze.

NINE

I had grasped God’s garment in the void
To touch the hem my soul to heal
And smooth the wrinkles when annoyed
And keep my heart on an even keel.

I had grasped God’s garment in the void
And marked it with my painted hands
That the towers of men would be destroyed
And sifted as the desert sands.

I had grasped God’s garment in the void
In hope, nay faith, that He would hold
Lest all my labors be destroyed
And turn to dust and not to gold.

TEN

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Though to do so ought to be within reach
I choose to watch TV instead.

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Though to do so ought to be within reach
I’m hopelessly daunted by the chasm ahead.

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Like crashing waves upon a beach
What is done and what is said.

PLEASE HELP!

Mission accomplished!

HUGE THANKS to all who participated in helping me complete this part of my winter term project. Many of you commented that it was fun - how cool is that? My work gets done and others have a good time!

In case this is your first look at this post, and you have no idea what I'm talking about - what was going on was a collaborative poetry effort similar to the children's game telephone (where one child whispers something in another's ear and that one passes it on, and you see at the end how different the saying comes out!). At each stage there was a line from a poem, but the rest of the poem was hidden, and I asked people to add the next line knowing only the prior one.

Twenty-four poems were created out of 10 "starter" lines that I put up.

Responses came from Norway and Micronesia and within the US from California, Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts!

If you're interested in seeing the full results, check back in a few days. I'll put up two posts about this - one with all the poems and one with just a couple of poems with comments. As a teaser for now, here are two samples:

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head
Like crashing waves upon a beach
What is done and what is said.


I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But a derrick bursting with oil
Not to be held in one's hand.

Update

Wow! We feel so loved! We received an amazing amount of prayer support and hugs and just felt surrounded by love during and after David's medical issue last week.

David is doing GREAT! We're continuing to pursue testing and the best possible preventative treatments, but, other than that, life is going on entirely as usual.

David is appreciating all the extra hugs from friends, family and coworkers but seems a little embarrassed about all the attention and is really downplaying the whole thing.

There is one thing, however, that he is playing to the hilt! The doctor told him he would be experiencing short term memory loss. He has already been exploiting this information, and I think that is just going to be his blanket excuse for forgetfulness for the rest of his life!

"I'm sorry, I don't remember that. I've had a stroke, and I have short term memory issues."

He'd better not try using that excuse when our anniversary rolls around - especially not with our twentieth this year!!

Mixed Blessing

It was hard to know how to title this post. I considered “Gratitude.” I considered “Pondering Life.” These fit too, but we’ve certainly experienced a "mixed blessing" this day.

We have been reminded of how precious life is.

We have been reminded of how quickly life can change.

We’ve had quite a scare.

We’ve seen many blessings.

This morning my husband woke me up just after 5am. He wanted to let me know he was going to drive to the hospital. When he told me what was going on – one arm entirely numb, dizziness and a sense of being too warm – I suggested I should drive him. As he continued to dress I made a call for him to get someone to lead his morning Bible study, but before I could complete the call he collapsed onto the bed, arms spread wide, saying, “Call 911. Call 911.” Then he got really quiet.

Thus began our day. It was a day of worry and of grace.

The firemen and paramedics arrived very quickly. I waited for a friend to arrive to remain with our kids who were still in bed; thankfully they had not been awakened to witness and become distressed by what was going on. I then headed to the ER. Everyone there was great – kept us informed, got a series of tests (6 of them!) started right away, were very thorough. The doctor was fantastic – kind, informative, attentive, concerned, personable.

As the morning progressed at ER and the numbness receded, my husband began to think it was a fluke, a pinched nerve or something, and he began to feel a bit silly for having gone in. This was not the case, however, as we soon we found out to our profound amazement. He had experienced a TIA (transient ischemic attack), a “mini-stroke” or “warning stroke.” What we also found out from the CT scan is that he has had a stroke in the past – a stroke that did damage but one which he did not feel and that had not impacted any functioning, so we were totally unaware of it. This was all rather shocking.

We’d never heard of TIA’s before. We now know that they are somewhat common among the elderly but particularly concerning in someone this young, especially someone with no risk factors – no smoking, no family history of stroke, no hypertension, no obesity, etc. He will need to take precautions to prevent possible future occurrence of stroke, and we know that if he experiences numbness or dizziness in the future that he needs to get to the hospital right away.

Tomorrow we will receive more information as he sees his primary doctor.

On the one hand, it was a very scary experience, and it is of concern to know that he has some degree of risk for stroke (and has actually had a stroke in the past) even though he is only 41. On the other hand, we have seen many blessings of God in this day. The timing could not have been better. It happened while he was awake rather than asleep. The numbness came on after he’d been up for a while; had he woken up with it he may have thought he had just slept on his arm in strange position and not taken the numbness as seriously. It happened at a time when the kids were spared the distress of witnessing our living room full of firemen and paramedics and seeing Dad wheeled out on a gurney and leaving in an ambulance. It happened at home, and we live very near the hospital. It did not happen when he was driving. We were upheld by many forms of support both tangible and intangible and were reminded of the love surrounding us and what fantastic, caring friends we have. The testing that he was given alerted us to a problem that was already there but that we would have had no other way of knowing about. This served as a warning that has given us the knowledge we need to be able to take precautions. This has reminded us too of what I listed above – how quickly life can change – how precious life is – how precious we are to each other - and how we need to remember that every day.

My posts don't usually contain such deeply personal events, but I think today calls for it.

I am so thankful for my husband and for God’s sustaining grace in this day.

Shul

I have always loved old stone walls such as the one in the photograph below. I love the hollows left by the stones that are missing. There is a beauty there, and the beauty is in the history and the meaning, the fact that something WAS there and made an impression. It is an emptiness that is not empty; the emptiness itself signifying something. The hollows always leave me wondering, “What was the color of the rock that was there? What was its texture? Whose hand placed it there? When did that hand place it there? When did it fall out and why? What was this wall built to keep out or to keep in?” With all of this in mind, I took the following photo, which I entitled “Shul.”

"Shul" is a Tibetan word defined as “an impression – a mark that remains after that which made it has passed by – a footprint, for example." From what I understand, it can also be used to describe such things as the hollow in the ground where a house once stood, the spaces worn in a rock where a river runs in flood, the indentation in the grass where a deer slept the night. Shul is an impression of something that used to be there, but this hollow signifies meaning rather than emptiness.

Mathematician's Resolution

Consume less

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)