Results of Ruminations

When I talked about dual identities a while ago, I focused on the Batman and a little on the Hulk. I had originally planned on incorporating an analysis of how Peter Parker and Spider-Man intersect as identities, but the essay was going too long by that point. I cut the stuff--which, for me, means highlighting the text and pressing Delete . So whatever I was thinking about apropos of Peter/Spidey, it's gone now. However, I'm at the precipice of beginning another school year  and I've been feeling incipient stirrings of what I can only assume is the (apparently) real phenomenon of a mid-life crisis. My parents were pretty steady, stay-the-course kind of parents, so I don't have a lot of up-close context for these feelings, but I've been struggling a lot with what I understand of myself, my goals, my ambitions, my dreams, and my realities. One of the things that I've always used as part of my identity, with varying degrees of severity, is my obsession with Spid...

There's something that I really want to talk about, but I don't know if there's ever a place or venue in which I should. I know that I shouldn't talk about it here or on Twitter, as I have students who read both. Even if I don't share such an essay online, it'd be  online, archived and ready for viewing. It isn't that I think that this Topic is so horrible or scandalous that students shouldn't read it, but rather I don't know if I want to talk about this Topic with them. I could verbalize it; make my wife suffer through my poorly constructed ideas and rambling sentences. That's the most likely outlet, but I don't know what I expect by airing this Topic, so I don't know if it will help or hinder my feelings. Additionally, it's difficult to know when to have important conversations, what with the differences in patience, energy levels, and emotional states of the different participants. Sometimes, I'd really like to talk about som...

Why do we tell stories? Yeah, yeah, I know: To make sense of the world, to preserve our culture and heritage, to explain what we could be. There are lots of reasons, and a lot of them also make sense (which is nice), but I've been thinking a lot about stories lately. Maybe it's because it's late but I'm worried the insomnia that's been plaguing me the last three nights is lurking behind me; maybe it's because my own sense of self-worth and legacy resides in twenty-six fragile letters, pushed back and forth on my keyboard millions of times and my stories remain almost entirely unread; maybe it's because the late July night outside of my now-open window is cooler than July usually is, and that feels like a detail that ought to be remembered somehow, if even in a nebulous, digital way. Maybe there are more reasons for telling stories than there are stories to be told, or maybe because there are really only a handful of each, but the veneer is different enou...

Like Harry Baker  (start at 1:29), I like people. This is easy to say in general, because there are some specific humans that I have little respect or appreciation for beyond the simple truth that we're all connected--the beautiful and the despicable. And considering the unflagging pessimism that louers over my heart and the tumultuous sea of depression that too often capsizes me in its troughs, this is no small thing. Indeed, it's the love of people--more than love of self--that keeps me around. That isn't to say that I am in a perpetual state of desiring suicide--quite the opposite; I don't want this ride on Earth to end, and thinking of "the undiscovered country" propels me through more of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy than is probably healthy and a more-than-white-knuckle-grip on however many numbered breaths I will yet claim. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about leaving the world on my own terms. I was ...

Why do I feel like I'm dying? The end of any school year is difficult. There are grades to turn in (late), awards to hand out, yearbooks to sign. And, of course, commencement. I enjoy commencement exercises. I sometimes listen to commencement speeches online. I'm not even graduating, I just like the inspirational thoughts that the speaker drops on a very inattentive (or, if you're Mike Pence , non-attending) audience. I've been in school, in one form or another, for approximately twenty-six years. It's my career and my passion, and I learn in order to teach better. So learning from the wisdom of the speakers--gaining motivation and inspiration from them--is a natural part of not only the end of the year, but of how I try to become better. So why do I feel like I'm dying? At our school, we have an annual tradition in which the faculty challenges the students' quidditch team. I coach the team all year long so that we're ready for this finale. (For ...

Not too long ago, I wrote about my frustration with teaching World War I . I had finished my teaching of the unit, in which I spent two weeks talking about strategies, conditions, battles, causes, and consequences of the First World War. Some of the days--particularly when we talk about shell shock/PTSD and the Armenian genocide--are heavy, dark, and depressing. One of my primary purposes is to shock the students out of complacency that "World War I was bad, I guess, but it was nothing  compared to World War II, which is so much better ." That sense of comparison frustrates me, which means I take it as a personal challenge to help my students understand that it's not a matter of which was worse, but instead a recognition of the tragedy that both were. And since they know comparatively little about the First World War, I take it upon myself to drive home the point. Word Choice As I've said before , I'm not a big swearing guy. I try to be really conscientious of ...

Where I live, there's just enough light pollution to keep most stars at bay. How interesting it is to consider that technology can push away the ancient photograph of celestial bodies that nightly parades, moving so predictably that we long assumed the stars more permanent than kings, more powerful than rulers. Were a civilization 65 million light years away to look through its telescope at our pale blue dot, they would see the light reflected off of dinosaur hides and feathers. Maybe that's why aliens haven't visited our planet: They're afraid of our teeth. The vastness of space is so mind-boggling big that it's sometimes easier to entrench than explore, to recoil instead of redouble our efforts to learn more. That emptiness--the same sky that almost everyone I know sleeps beneath--means something different to each person. How interesting it is to consider that the immensity of the galaxy in which we live, despite its ubiquity, can mean something so separate fr...

First off, the word pedagogy is weird. Generously, it sounds like "ped" meaning foot  (like in the word pedigree ) and "gogy" meaning "baby talk for 'doggy'". It doesn't mean either of those things. My favorite etymology website says that the word comes from the Greek and Latin meaning "education of boys". The way it's used nowadays, however, is the method of instruction--that is, the choices that an educator makes in her classroom, whether it be classroom management, assignments, or interaction with the students, all wrap into the broadest sense of pedagogy . I'm becoming increasingly unsure of how I approach things from a pedagogical standpoint, however. I've been teaching for nine years straight, to say nothing of the student teaching and substitute teaching I have under my size 34 belt. Existential crises are pretty common for me--paralyzing moments of crippling doubt that make me puzzle over almost every decision* ...

There are differences between guilt  and shame . I like what Dr. Burgo outlines in the linked article. Since I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, both of those concepts are something that is not only discussed, but even preached, particularly about guilt. For example, Elder David A. Bednar, in a General Conference address, said a variation of what I've heard in one form or another throughout my life: "Guilt is to our spirit what pain is to our body—a warning of danger and a protection from additional damage." These two definitions aren't seamless. The doctor's point of view is that it is what we fear about others--their feelings, their lives, their thoughts toward us--and the harm we cause them that triggers the feeling of guilt. For the theologian, it is an internal thing, one about personal choices that aren't kosher. If Dr. Burgo's distinction were applied, Elder Bednar here is talking about shame. In line with Dr. Burgo...

For the first time in...well, months, really...I don't want to write an essay. There have been times when I didn't know what to talk about. I'd cast my eyes around my office, hoping for some inspiration to strike. My eyes would rove over books that I either remembered or had no memory of, depending on how long it had been since I read them. Most of those that I read I could probably regurgitate some event or other that happened in them, and any of those that I don't have any memory at all are probably those that I haven't actually read them yet. Nevertheless, they often spurred some topic or another. Not tonight. I finished some final thoughts and changes to my first World War I presentation that I'll be putting on tomorrow, which used up a lot of my time. Thinking about what I'm going to have to do to teach a handful of 15 and 16 year olds about the Great War always makes me glum. It's hard because I have a lot (for the lay person) of knowledge abou...

There's a leak in my house. Not a large one, but a persistent one. The previous owners fixed some piping before they sold us the place, but neglected to properly seal the hole through which the pipe comes, leading to a constant drip. My wife thinks it's actually the water main. I don't know what to think, as everyone who has offered advice has either had contradictory advice (including the plumbers we brought in and didn't help at all) or nothing at all. I'm shutting down about the whole thing, which is bad, since we're headed to Europe for a couple weeks and can't really have a bucketful of water filling in our basement twice a day. Part of what frustrates me about it is how small, yet catastrophic it is. Bit by bit, drip by drip, the bucket fills. It's a painful metaphor for the end of this year. Since election night, I've been on a steady IV of depression. Every snippet of news, every reminder of the history that is repeating itself before my ...

I don't know all of the details, and I also am making some assumptions on his life based upon poetry (always a risky proposition), but it seems as though slam poet Shane Koyczan   lost his mother due to illness, lived with his grandparents ,* and has said goodbye to too many people he knew. But assuming his poetry is autobiographical, I think it's fair to say that he's had a pretty rough life. Yet his stories are filled with hope, his words with wisdom, and his warm voice with a fatigued but familiar friendliness that holds me when I'm lonely and no one else's arms are nearby to shrug into. And it got me thinking about the marvel of what it is to be so connected, and how much I owe to two Canadian grandparents, one from pre-war Austria, who did their best to raise a young man with a darkness in his soul that he wished to exorcise. Their hard work to raise Shane has, indirectly, led to the life of a guy in Utah Valley being improved, helped, and brightened. Thank...