Just shoot me now...

...with something good liiiiiiiike...morphine?

I think I will call the doctor after school is out to see if he will need to see me to give a prescription for an inhaler. I'm not sure how picky they will be or if they will want their $20 pound of monetary flesh. I hope not. You never know how much you take something simple like breathing for granted until it becomes painful to do it.

I think I have figured out a way for youse peoples to be emailed when I blog. To the right of the blogs is a window for putting in your email address. When you click on the button below it, a window pops up and you have to prove you are human by putting in the letters and numbers as shown. We'll see how it works. I tried to do some research on the company to see if anyone was complaining they got spam from them but couldn't find anything about it.

We were working on Parallelism the other day and I was using King's "I have a dream" speech as an example. I then had the students write their own version of a speech where they used the phrase as many times as he did (9 times). I thought about doing my own version of it for a blog entry but, honestly, it started sounding too mushy or too sloppy and I couldn't get past the first two or three. I will, however, comment on dreams.

A DREAM DEFERRED

By

Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I always think of this poem when talking about dreams. It is always important to dream. I often joke about being a sometimes visitor to reality but I don't live here. Those who know me realize this is not much of an exaggeration. One of the excuses I use for this habit of being in other worlds than this one is related to this subject.

It kind of comes down to "the more you know, the more you wished you didn't know." Being an insatiably curious individual and an observer of the "human condition," I have seen lots of things and lots of situations. Humanity is capable of tremendous things that awe and inspire but the other side of the coin is just as depraved and depressing. I cherry pick my way through reality as we know it to take what I want of it and leave the rest so that my ability to dream doesn't die.

I think that might be part of what happened to my dad. He was pretty much stuck in this reality because he hated to read and, although he loved movies, tended to stick with reality. When it became too much for him, he retreated into his head and hence the paranoia and such until he got medication for it.

What I am describing in myself is not unique or unusual. Most of us do this to one degree or another but I am me and therefore everything is more pompous and grand than for anyone else (yes, I said it before someone else did ;)! So dreams are very important and necessary. Without them, we would all just curl up in a fetal position and die or wish to...which brings me back to where I began this thing except my problem is just chest pains from allergies.

Until next time...

Opus

Let us sit upon the ground...

...and tell sad stories of the death of kings.

Richard II Act 3 scene 2

Today is weird. I feel...melancholy? Depressed? Hmm...somber: that's it....somber.

Every time (sad that I need to use that phrase) there is another shooting rampage on a campus, I am more and more affected by it. I'm not scared but I am worried. It makes me sad...duh..everyone should be that way about it. It probably doesn't help that my chest hurts from allergies and it is hard to breath today. The dark weather attributes to it as well.

I was teaching about analogies today so beware that there will be a few in here. Uh oh, here comes one: When you are young tragedies and serious situations roll of fairly fast like water on a duck's back but as we get older the oil that makes this take place gets diluted, or, as in my case, I don't have as many "feathers" up there as when I was younger. It gets harder to let these things roll off and let life go on. Well, it is easier for some people in one very sad way. By sheer numbers of incidents, we become more and more inured (had to look up my spelling on that one) to it and that is a tragedy unto itself.

*sigh* Someone just said it started snowing...I am in class by the way. They are writing analogies so I writing analogies.

I find it a bit alarming how quickly and easily we throw words like insane or disturbed as if these give excuse to actions such as killing. As a world, we are uncomfortable with assigning rationality or sanity to those who chose to drastically violate deeply held social laws like pre-meditated murder. We are quick to try and find some excuse or reason to put such abhorrent people in a separate category from the rest of us; if we don't then we must admit they are the same as us but just made different choices.

Lucifer made a choice. He was the same as us, no, better than many of us as the descriptions tell us. He made a choice. His choice doesn't make sense to many of us and could be considered insane or disturbed, but I contest it was a rational choice. I like Milton's explanation the best for his motivation: "It is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." The fact that most of these gunmen kill themselves at the end goes further to prove my point. It was planned, thought out, and put into action carefully. They kill themselves to alleviate any consequences to their actions. "The ends justify the means?" No...the "means" justifies the end.

I worry about it happening here: wherever my "here" is at the time. I know what it felt like for those instructors, students, staff as the shots rang out. Liviu Librescu, a holocaust survivor, barred his door to allow his students to reach safety at the cost of his life. To have survived the harrowing experience of the holocaust only to die in a campus shooting? No, you misunderstand if that is your view of this. He gave his life nobly. He made a choice, too. It was the right choice in a very wrong situation.

John Donne - Mediation XVII

No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Professor Librescu understood this quote. I actually told my students that this came from a meditation (blank stares) but if it were done in our time period we would refer to it as a...come on....you guessed it? Blog. Donne's Blog XVII. I do hope Mr. Donne (Father Donne?) will forgive me but the blank stares went away to be filled with understanding. Wow, if Shakespeare had a blog...cool.

Well, the cathartic effect has taken place. I do feel better now. Thanks for putting up with it.

Until next time...

Opus

To Blog or Not To Blog...that is the question...

Ok...FINE! I will blog. I suppose it would be the pinnacle, the peak, the height of rudeness to start a blog without a post; however, it is still "very tempting, Hammy, verrry tempting..." to go ahead an leave it blank buuuut I won't.

Well, as fond as I am of change, I will be going through another one - noooo, not male menopause...I've got to have something to look forward to in my fifties or sixties...besides grandchildren (spoil them rotten and send them back home with noisy toys)...the change to which I am blithely referring is of job. Due to circumstances beyond my control, and after having said I don't want to do Debate next year, I am a penguin without a school for next year. Oh well. It is okay - I am doing the right thing for the right reasons so everything will turn out all RIGHT, right?

I am getting trunky (as in my mental bags are packed - WATCH IT!) for Summer. The weather is turning nicer---sometimes. It is only about 6-7 weeks away from my next installment of "earlier retirement" al la Summer Months. Perhaps this will be the Summer of my Grand Novel/Short Story? Perhaps I will write down some music? Perhaps cockroaches will dance the watusi in my shorts? No...you have to draw the line somewhere!

Well, that will count for my first blog....for now...for all time....for get it.

Opus