Blog Archives - The Land of the Weird

The Land of the Weird

Clutch Week

1/31/2017

Although my EdD courses don't end for another few weeks, my major projects for both of them are due at the end of this one. One is a multimedia digital learning object which needs to incorporate video, audio, text, images, and animation. It also requires an annotated bibliography of two research studies that correspond with what I want the object to teach and an online Google quiz. The second class's culminating project is an 8-10 page paper that outlines the field research that my group and I have done on an educational technology that is related to one of six current trends.

A few weeks ago, seeing these projects looming on the horizon, I lost a bit of heart about my degree program. Now, both of them seem completely within my grasp, albeit time-consuming. My goal is to have them both done a day ahead of schedule. However, I have to still juggle other obligations as well as doctor-prescribed break times (recommendation from my visit with him yesterday) with these classes. I am certain everything will go fine, but I hope you'll understand if I seem a bit preoccupied.

Dow Jones [controversial]

1/30/2017

On January 25th, the Dow Jones Industrial Average passed the 20,000 point mark for the first time in history. When I graduated from high school in 1992, it had recently broken records by reaching 3,300 points. That means that it has had an increase of over 500% in just twenty-five years. Our economy has been following a growth curve similar to the one I saw in junior high science about rabbit populations. In fact, considering that Obama started his term with the Dow around 7,000 (after a drop from around 13,000 just before the end of W. Bush's presidency), the rate of increase has been even greater in the past eight years.

Considering that the U.S. population only grew from around 260,000,000 in 1992 to around 325,000,000 today (a 25% increase), I cannot help but notice that a substantial amount of wealth seems to be missing from the general populace. I certainly do not see a similar increase in the vast majority of Americans' incomes. The median household income is only up about 10% during that 25-year period. In fact actual wages for most workers (when inflation is taken into account) are still down from their high in 1970 (when the Dow only got slightly higher than 800--no, I didn't drop a zero). Economic growth for the nation has not led to anything close to a commensurate economic growth for most Americans. In the meantime, pensions and health benefits from most jobs have been drastically cut due to a financial "crisis" that simply doesn't exist.

In my mind, this is what the drama about our current president is truly hiding, just as the drama around Obama's presidency hid this same wealth disparity. These are numbers that scream for attention. Only by having an even louder circus take place around them do they go unnoticed.

The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

1/29/2017

The Beatitudes made up today's Gospel. In the Old Testament, Moses went up a mountain alone and came back with the Commandments. Jesus goes up a mountain followed by a crowd. Instead of giving out the law, He passes out blessings. This, for me, is the primary difference between the Old and New Testaments.

Today's mass also was the celebration of a baptism. This is the first baptism that I remember seeing within the mass at this church. Our newest member of our parish was wide eyed through the sacrament, just soaking it all in. Talk about blessings ...

Star Wars Canon

1/28/2017

While I have been quite pleased with Disney's revitalization of the Star Wars universe--especially its handling of the most recent two movies--one aspect of the new management has saddened me: the loss of some stories and characters from the canon. Many authors of both books and videogames had added a wealth of people, places, and ideas to the Star Wars universe in the years after the first movie was made. I understand that Disney wants to give its writers and directors freedom and not shackle them creatively.

Unfortunately, that means that Luke never crossed into the dark side to fight a clone of Palpatine. Mara Jade never captured Luke Skywalker and was slowly convinced to turn to the light side of the force and eventually marry him. Grand Admiral Thrawn never threatened the New Republic. Leia didn't go to Chewie's home planet, and then liberate an entire species. The Solo twins were never born.

Sure, I'm still interested, and even excited, to see where the series will go from here, but I can't help but wish that more of the tales that I had come to love had somehow been incorporated.

Racism [controversial]

1/27/2017

Trump is not our first racist president. Considering that that eighteen of our presidents owned slaves at some point in their lives (famously including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson), and a long line of presidents supported laws of segregation, he might not even crack the most racist half. Unfortunately, his candidacy and election as president have certainly made racism more mainstream.

Today, for the first time, I had a student specifically cite President Trump's racism as a reason why his racist comments should be ignored. The student claimed that making a racist comment was his opinion and thus protected under the 1st Amendment. I explained that the 1st Amendment does not protect against threats or words which cause injury, nor does it say that there will not be consequences (such as losing a job or being suspended from school) for saying certain things. His reply was that Trump said racist things about Mexicans and he became president, and then asked what his consequences were.

While my reply was that there are a number of lawsuits that Trump has to deal with and that we might not know the full consequences for some time, my mind was spinning. How can we tell our middle school students that abusive, hate-filled, or sexually demeaning language is not acceptable if Trump was able to become president of our nation doing exactly that?

This is not the only class in which I have had to address racist or other hateful comments this week. Certainly, I've had to have these discussions with my students throughout my career, but the day-to-day incidents have noticeably increased. These aren't bad kids. I believe that they are honestly confused and are testing the boundaries of what is and isn't acceptable (as all teenagers do). I hope that I can guide them in a way that makes our world a less hate-filled place.

Fair

1/26/2017

One of my students complained in class that the water polo game he played today wasn't fair. When I asked why, he said that all of the boys had to play in the deep end of the pool and the girls played on the shallow side. The girls were able to easily knock away the boys' shots, while the boys were hard pressed to get out of the water enough to block the girls'. I asked something like, "...and that made you lose?" The boy responded, "No. We still won, but that doesn't make it fair."

As people, we are obsessed with the idea of fairness, as long as it is fair on our terms (and often in our favor). This is the difficulty with all human relationships. My sons were just arguing about the fairness of chores. Trevor doesn't believe it's fair that he is expected to do more than Connor. Meanwhile, Connor doesn't believe it's fair that Rowen doesn't have to do the same choirs that he has to do. I remember having similar concerns when I was their ages.

Then, of course, there is the saying "Life isn't fair" -- an expression often used by people who have what they want when they are explaining why another person didn't get the same. Instead of trying to make life more "fair," we often justify our unfair treatment of others due to times when life was unfair to us.

I hope that I will strive less to seek what is "fair" than to achieve what is right.

Conversations

1/25/2017

I had an expected number of deep conversations today. Some were with my students, some with my coworkers, some with family, and some with members of my church. The topics varied. Among them included discussions about book banning, politics in school decisions, the positive and negative qualities of our first President, the differences between fact and truth, how much humanity has or has not changed over time, discrimination based on sexual identity, digital citizenship, the dangers of hypocrisy, and how to hold the attention of youth in today's society.

All of them provoked my mind to deeper levels of thinking. In some, I was the instigator, in others a participant, in others just a listener. In some people left thoughtful, in others frustrated, in others consoled, and yet others angry. While only a few of these conversations came to some sort of resolution, they were all worth having. I do not feel that I could do any of them justice at the moment.

My mind feels full.

Fifty Degrees

1/24/2017

Last week, our thermometer was reading temperatures below negative twenty. Today, we had highs that approached the freezing mark. That's a fifty degree difference--the difference between freezing and temperatures in the 80s.

The major downside of this kind of weather change is that the roads become substantially slicker. Worse, there are chances of ice rain in the days to come. Still, warmer weather hopefully means lower fuel bills and less of a chance of pipes freezing. It's also nice to not see frost accumulate along the edges of the doors and the exterior door knob.

I'm wondering if I should get out my shorts.

Thawed

1/23/2017

In the end, we ended up hiring a professional to melt the ice in our cabin's frozen drain. The pipe was frozen from somewhere up by the leach field to all the way under the cabin. Our steam engineer was able to access the entire line from outside. He was able to clear in forty-five minutes a blockage that we had spent hours working on to no effect. After seeing the scope of the freeze, I better understand why our efforts proved to be so useless.

Currently, the cabin's pipes are draining nicely and we have one of the taps running a perpetual stream. Our plan is still to check on the cabin daily. We are fortunate in that the ice does not seem to have damaged the pipes themselves. All told, this could have been much worse--I'm certainly glad that Janelle decided to check the cabin when she did. It was a chore that I found entirely too easy to put off.

With the forecast showing a greater thaw later this week--to the point of temperatures passing above the freezing mark, I pray that the deep freezes are over for the winter. Still, I won't count the cold as being out just yet.

The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

1/22/2017

Today's second reading asks why Christians have become so fragmented in their beliefs. This certainly applies to us today. So often we focus on our differences that we forget that we are more alike than different. While this is true for all human beings, I am surprised at how often Christians tend to forget it.

In his homily, our pastor reminded us that we worship a living God, one who is with us in the here and now. We are asked not to just wait for some future heaven, but to work towards making our present world a paradise. To do this we need to do is help one another, support one another, and love one another rather than focusing solely on ourselves.

These tasks align. To better unite, we must not allow ourselves to be isolated. While having time alone is often essential to our sanity, deliberately cutting ourselves off from others does not solve most of our problems. Let us work together and help make the world a better place for all of us.

Snow Play

1/21/2017

We received another 3+ inches of snow last night. Since we were going to be out shoveling for a while anyway, I let both puppies outside and off their leashes. Sure, it took a couple hours before they decided to come in, but they certainly had fun frolicking.

Farewell, Obama; Congratulations, Trump

1/20/2017

Once again, the coin of politics has landed on the other side. One of the greatest aspects of our system of government is that we manage to do so with almost no bloodshed. There are many places around the world even today who would desperately like to say the same thing. Although people rave and rant with each transition that "this time everything is going to fall apart," we manage to keep going, hopefully a bit wiser with each step.

I am not excited about the new administration, but I've been continually disappointed by our government for quite a while now. So far, no matter who is in power, I feel that some of my beliefs and ideals are ignored (if not trampled and crushed). Still, there are few people who would agree with all of my political beliefs; I can't really expect one of them to take office.

I won't ask those who hate our new president to stop hating him (although hatred does lead to suffering) any more than I would ask those who love our new president to get a private room (although some of the gushing does nauseate me a bit). Instead, I ask everyone to remember that the coin continues to flip sides from election to election. Continue to fight for the causes that you believe in no matter which side is up at the moment.

Pipe Dream

1/19/2017

I've spent most of my time home from work dealing with the drain pipe from the cabin that has apparently frozen sometime during the past couple of days. We've had a spate of cold days with temperatures that have even dipped below -20 on a couple of occasions at our house. While the house's plumbing seems fine, when Janelle checked on the cabin today, she discovered that the sinks, tub, and toilet weren't draining.

Dozens of gallons of near-boiling water (it was boiling before we made the trek from the house to the cabin) and hours of plunging later and the drain still isn't working. Unfortunately, there are no access points to the plumbing inside the cabin. There might be a way to get under the cabin, but it's not a job that I am willing to undertake in this weather. Fortunately, we are supposed to warm up to near freezing in the next week. We will check on it in the meantime, but me might need to wait until then (or even later) before we can thaw the drain. I pray that none of the pipes broke due to this freeze.

Online Classes

1/18/2017

I'm caught up with posting to the discussion boards for my two EdD classes. I stopped myself from continuing an disagreement between whether a word was a gerund or a participle (answer: it was a participle with an auxiliary verb). I gave several quality suggestions about my group members' videos that will probably not be heeded, not because my group members don't value my ideas, but because I posted almost as late as I could get away with and all of my group members tend to get their stuff done a week early.

All told, the classes are taking up a good deal of my time and I would much prefer to work on them in actual classrooms rather than online ones, but I've been able to handle them so far and have even learned some interesting things. One item that I am particularly proud of is a short podcast that I made a little over a week ago with the help of Connor. For some reason Google Drive doesn't like the WAV file type, so you might have to download it to actually listen to it, but I've provided the link if you are interested.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0o0byFczOxPTy12a1h1Mm5vZ3c/view?usp=sharing