One of my favorite parts of any trip to a new region is seeing birds I’ve never seen before. My trip to Portland last month was no exception, and I was happy to catch sight of even the common regional birds. I’ve updated my lifelist to include the birds I saw out there, bringing my total of birds seen in North America up to a whopping 104! I’m still working on gathering photos of the European birds, but the list itself is complete.
Month: February 2007
anxiety dream
When I transitioned totally from student to teacher a few years ago, my standard anxiety dream changed as well. The old student standby of ‘I show up for the first day of classes, only to discover that they have been going on for weeks and I am behind, with only one night to do all of the (math, statistics, science) homework sets,’ only to discover that I can’t read the book because it’s a dream. This last was usually a relief, as it allowed me to wake up and be done with the dream-cramming for the dream-exam in the dream-class that I was doomed to fail.
Later, the teacher version of this dream went something like ‘I show up for class, I’m totally prepared, I’m zipping along, and suddenly the entire class starts rebelling, leading to a near riot.’ The first time I had this dream, I woke up totally perplexed. Why were my students out of control, why? Then I came to recognize it for the place-holder that it was, and didn’t pay much attention. It varied slightly over time, just like the student dream did, but it was always that same basic formula, ending in me abandoning all hope of any kind of pedagogical endeavor and just trying to get out of the classroom.
This week, I had my first not teaching anxiety dream. This is the first February since the 70s that I have not been connected to an educational institution as either student or teacher. In looking back, I did have two autumns away from schools (the first year after college, and the first year we were in DC), but in both of those years I began teaching in some form by February. So, truly, this is the first year I’ve successfully resisted the urge to rush back to an institution of learning in some form.
Thus, the dream: I go to the university where I used to teach, agree to teach several classes, then go to another university in town and beg them to let me teach two literature classes (one on camping as it appears in American literature, and one on fulcrums), all the while figuring out how I’m going to have time to run back to the first university and quit my teaching job before classes actually start…that afternoon. Conflicted much, subconscious? I woke up from that one thinking, ‘Why was I begging for a teaching job, only to decide immediately thereafter to quit it? Why were they going to hire me to teach in the literature department? Why was a class on fulcrums the second most popular literature class after the Shakespeare seminar?’ I’m not sure which of these burning questions was the most perplexing, honestly.
The upshot? I’m torn about breaking my lifetime association with the institutions of education. After this dream experience, though, I’m even more curious to see what new opportunities come along once I successfully resist the siren call of the teaching profession.
Friendship Day dinner
Having gone through a couple of disastrous Valentine’s Days over the past 13 years, my partner and I don’t really celebrate the holiday. We usually go out for dinner and celebrate Martin Luther King Day instead, both because we find it to be a much more valuable commemoration and because it’s closer to the anniversary of the start of our relationship.
At any rate, this year we decided to do something a little different: we went to a church dinner. The town Church of the Brethren was having a spaghetti dinner on Saturday night, donations only, that included live music. Our friends were game to join us, so we dubbed the evening a Friendship Day celebration and away we went.
The dinner itself was actually very nice, with tasty food and a warm atmosphere. The folks putting it together had worked hard on all the details: there were flowers, candy dishes, pink and red lights, and all the servers were wearing lace-trimmed heart-shaped aprons. If the Peace Pole outside the front door hadn’t been enough to sway us, this last—seeing a middle-aged man cheerily taking orders in a lace-trimmed heart-shaped apron—led to the consensus at the table that ‘these are good people.’ The music was by Don’t Tell Bob, an area band who played a mix of spirituals and folk songs that leaned toward what I would call bluegrass but may have a different designation out here.
All in all, it was a nice evening. As he commented when we got home: it was the kind of thing we would have been mortified to be seen at with our parents as teenagers, gone to in our early twenties because we couldn’t afford anything else, been too busy out living it up a few years ago to be bothered with, and that we now both genuinely enjoyed now.
So, I hope you had a warm and happy Friendship Day. I know we did!
the ice storm goeth
We must have been perfectly prepared for the storm: in line with Murphy’s Law, we didn’t even get any actual ice. Snow, sleet, freezing rain, slush, some wind. That’s it.
Nothing like what we remembered from Indiana 17 years ago. Which was, you know, good. I’m sure my foresight will be duly rewarded on some other occasion, hopefully one that doesn’t threaten life or limb.
the ice storm cometh
As far as I can tell, we’re as prepared as we can be for the ice storm expected to hit the DC area any minute now. It’s supposed to rain and freeze all night, and I fully expect to wake up to a house without power. Our town is full of trees: lots of beautiful old trees growing under, over, on and around power lines. When we moved in last spring, one of our neighbors told us that anytime there’s weather in this region that causes power outages, it’s pretty much guaranteed that our town will be out.
So, we’re expecting to deal with that tomorrow, although I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised. The best case scenario would be if we had power and yet the federal government was closed, but I’m not holding my breath for that one.
At any rate, we have food, we have water, we have batteries, flashlights, candles, matches, two snow shovels, fire starter sticks (but no firewood; I’m hoping to rely on neighbors if that becomes necessary), a battery-powered radio, and a carton of rice milk. The biggest challenge will be getting coffee; I’m hoping it won’t come to making it with hot water from the tap (our water heater runs on gas). But if that’s what I have to do, that’s what I have to do.