Blog Archives - The Land of the Weird

The Land of the Weird

Fat Tuesday/Ash Wednesday Vigil 2017

2/28/2017

Due to the priest rotation in our area, our church holds its evening Ash Wednesday service as a vigil on the Tuesday before. Doubtlessly, many people are confused by this or prefer to go to Kenai on the actual Ash Wednesday, so the turnout is usually quite light (as it was today). I still really liked the homily.

Our pastor shared that many young couples give him superficial reasons for wanting to get married: their potential spouse's job, friends, family, their looks, etc. He asks them what would happen if those things changed about the person. Often people love someone not for who that someone is, but for what they get out of the relationship with that someone. He said that, for many of us, that is our relationship with Jesus. We don't love Jesus for who He is, but for what we hope to get out of the relationship. When things start to not go the way we expect, we then drop that relationship because it was never truly based on love to begin with.

I know that my relationship with Jesus can use work. I ask too often for signs of His love (or even existence) no matter how often He shares it with me. Every time I allow myself to open up to His love I can feel it and see it in the elements of life and love all around me. Yet when things don't go my way, I tend to cut myself off with doubt and misgivings. For that matter, I need to work on all of my relationships.

Mixed Emotions

2/27/2017

Things are going pretty well right now. In fact, it is almost as though the entertainment industry is tailor-making its movies, shows, and video games for me. Tomorrow, Dr. Strange comes out on DVD. This weekend, Logan (likely to be the Wolverine movie I've been waiting for) comes out in theaters which are already showing LEGO Batman and an M. Night Shyamalan movie that is good enough that people aren't ashamed to make M. Night Shyamalan references again. This Friday is also the release of the Nintendo Switch (which I'm not that excited about) and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which I AM that excited about!). Considering that on top of that Iron Fist comes to Netflix in a couple of weeks just in time to be binge watched at the end of my "spring" break (although I will need to actually wait for moments when Janelle is at home and the boys are in bed), I should be feeling great.

However, I've been a bit down too. Part of it is that my classes with Walden just started a new term and both classes seem to be intent on pounding in just how much time and dedication that my dissertation (called a capstone at Walden) is going to take over the next few years. Part of it is that Lent kicks off this week, and while it's supposed to be a holy time of reflection, it usually just feels dreary to me. Part of it is that track season is starting up soon and I had to officially say that I wasn't going to coach hurdles this year due to scheduling conflicts and I'm feeling guilty every time I see one of the kids I coached last year. Part of it is that so many students are currently failing in my language arts classes as we approach the end of this quarter and I don't know how to make it right. Part of it is the anger, ignorance, and vitriol that I'm seeing every day in the news, in social media, and in day-to-day conversations. Part of it might just be the time of year as I'm probably still dealing with a sunlight (if not vitamin D) deficiency.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..." [BTW, it's worth reading the rest of that quote and remembering that Dickens was writing the truth about his time, and the times that came before, and the times that came after, and our present moment.]

The Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2/26/2017

My day at church did not go entirely as planned. We were supposed to have a children's choir and have been practicing for the past month in preparation. However, the only children in the choir today were my sons. I did not see any of the children who had been practicing out in the pews. Due to the lack of priests, we held a celebration of the liturgy and a communion service instead of a mass. Between that and the number of people out of town this weekend, many of the children who would have been in choir simply weren't there.

Things still went well. Our adult choir members took up the slack, and several parishioners commented to me about how much they liked my sons' singing. I suppose this is what the scripture means in putting our trust in the Lord. Not everything will go according to my plans, but that doesn't mean that they won't turn out well.

Today's Gospel has two lines that I try to remember in my daily life. The first is "Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?". This is later followed by "Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself." As a person who spends a lot of time worrying, I find these two to be good advice. This doesn't mean to not make necessary plans, but rather to realize that there will be things out of our control that lead towards a greater plan than we can possibly conceive. Research has shown that worrying actually makes us live shorter lives, making the first statement even more powerful (and a little sarcastic). Instead of worrying, we should be devoting ourselves to doing what we can to follow God and make the world a better place.

Sledding

2/25/2017

Despite having a good amount of snow on our property since November, I had not attempted to do any sledding until today. In fact, until today, most of my time spent enjoying the outdoors has only been while shoveling. As a new set of classes starts up for me on Monday and the weather was nice today, I figured that it would be a good time to break that trend.

Our sledding hill is a cleared path under the power and telephone cables that run from the road to a pole near our house and garage. While our home is on the north side of a small ridge, it and its immediate yard are also a bit higher than the road. Thus, we have a bit of a hill that starts just past our cabin and heads towards the ditch by our road--blocked by a fallen tree. It reminds me of the hill just outside my parents' bedroom at the home where I grew up. The only real difference is that hill was regularly mowed and this hill has a number of small bushes and shrubs that the snow mostly covers.

After a winter of accumulation, the untouched areas of snow easily went past my knees and nearly up to my waist in a couple of dips. With the recent thawing and freezing, everything was coated with a thin glaze of ice. Just the process of walking to the hill was a mini workout. The boys had made a few paths earlier in the year, but those were mostly covered by the inches of snow we had earlier this week. Thus, most of our time was spent trying to make sled runs.

While the clearing heads in a straight line from the yard to the road, the hill itself curves to the woods on the left. This made it so both of the sled runs we created had to have hard curves if we wanted them to reach their maximum potential distance. By the time we were done, Trevor was able to ride one of them all the way to the fallen tree--the other one stubbornly sent people off to the woods.

After about ten times sliding down (half of them with Rowen) and slogging back up, I was exhausted. Connor had gone in early and made sure we had hot water for cocoa. It was a good day.

The Next Thing

2/24/2017

In many ways, I love the current age of movies and television. The Marvel Universe and Star Wars, both under the wing of Disney, are churning out exactly the kinds of movies (and Netflix TV series) that I want to watch. Meanwhile in the videogame world, Nintendo is about to unleash the next in the Zelda series (and it looks pretty spectacular), Naughty Dog is in the process of making The Last of Us 2 (a sequel to the game that I believe held one of the best stories to date), Rockstar Games is making Red Dead Redemption 2, and many other of my favorite franchises are looking to continue producing games that I love.

Yet the game I've been playing the most lately has been Overwatch, a completely different kind of game that was not a sequel to anything. While I have enjoyed playing games and watching shows that hold familiar thrills, it is the unique experience that usually sticks with me. It's the experience that scratches the itch I never knew I had that is usually the most satisfying, partially because I'm not always measuring it to the other parts of its series.

This doesn't mean that sequels are bad. I can think of many cases where sequels were far superior to the original (Final Fantasy VI, Resident Evil 4, The Wrath of Khan, etc.). Still, I worry about how worn some of the trails are in the realm of entertainment. There can be too much of a good thing.

That said, I wouldn't say no to Firefly: The Next Generation.

Colonizing

2/23/2017

40 light years away sits a system with at least seven Earth-sized planets sitting in the "habitable zone" from their sun. In the past couple days, I've read through several articles about this discovery. None of them really give much more information than the above, but all of them have sparked my imagination.

One reason for this might be that I'm currently in the process of rereading (for I'm not sure how many times) the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey, a sci-fi concept of people who have built a new kind of culture on a colonized world. Actually, I'm even nearing the end of the book Dragonsdawn which tells the story of the first colonists who land on Pern with the hope of creating a new society for themselves before they are attacked by the terror that visits the world almost every 250 years. I suppose my thoughts about exploring and colonizing planets beyond our solar system is a natural extension of such news and entertainment.

I believe that humanity is destined to make its way into the stars: "To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before." I feel this with a passion that thrums throughout my very being.

Granted, I want it to be in the comfortable Star Trek way. On a ship that has the comforts of the futuristic society with replicators and advanced medicines. More likely, our attempts to explore our galaxy will be significantly ... more uncomfortable. I suppose that I would like to see those worlds when a more tried and true method of doing so was available. My sense of adventure only goes so far ...

I had hoped that the imaginings of much of the science fiction that I loved would be a reality in my lifetime. Watching the dismantling of our nation's space program has been, for me, one of the most painful parts of the past few decades. We need to go out there.

Morning Shoveling

2/22/2017

Knowing that we had inches of snow (up to five) forecasted for last night, I set my alarm early, and told Trevor to do the same, with the plan that we would check to see if we needed to shovel our way out and have the time to do so if necessary. The last time we had received a forecast of 3-5 inches, we received the full five and Mera had a tough time getting out of our driveway. Considering that our driveway's packed snow mounds are that much higher, I was concerned that we might get stuck if we got five inches again.

We got a little more than five inches, so I put on my snow shoveling gear and went out to do battle as the snow continued to coat me and my driveway. The hardest part was when I got past the area illuminated by our enthusiastically powerful yard light, which was also the area that I needed to shovel the most (as it's the place where I got stuck before). Not only was I wishing for a headlamp and having to guess and go by feel (using the Force?) in some places, but I was creeped out to no end. All that kept coming to mind was a comment Janelle had made about how big the wolves were that she saw in the Fred Meyer parking lot. It really didn't help when the podcast I was listening to (Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me) started playing some creepy clown laughter as a sound effect.

Meanwhile, I expected Trevor to come out at any minute. An hour and a half later, I had finished a path out (but not the whole circle or the side areas) and Trevor was just starting to put on his boots.

We had a talk.

While the early morning exercise was invigorating at the time, by the time I got to school I was feeling the effects of not enough sleep and tired muscles. Staying awake while grading during my prep period was particularly challenging.

At least the early shoveling paid off; we got out of the driveway with no real trouble.

Asking Permission

2/21/2017

One of my former students posted an article about the tradition of a man asking a woman's father for the father's blessing before the man asks the woman to marry him. While the article blasted the tradition as misogynistic, the student said that she wouldn't want to marry a man who didn't talk to her father first. Personally, I hadn't thought about the idea much. I was certainly happy that Peter asked for my blessing (which I was happy to give) and Janelle's before proposing to Katrina (although that left me with a little more than a week of keeping a secret). Still, I don't think that I would have been bent out of shape if he proposed without asking first.

Granted, I like Peter. I don't know if things would be the same if a man I didn't care for wanted to marry my daughter. I certainly think that it would be easier to dislike the guy if he never asked permission. I could see me construing such a slight as him basically saying that he had no respect for her parents or family. I think that's one area that people often forget when they plan on getting married: they are gaining an entire family of relations in the process. I feel that those who ignore that family, or at least don't attempt to make some sort of connection with the family, are more likely to have short-term marriages as well. I'm certain that there are exceptions to that idea on both ends of the spectrum.

I wonder how much this practice still continues. Have we become more of a "beg forgiveness rather than ask permission" sort of society? Is that necessarily a negative thing? In an era where women are much more in control of their own destinies, should the woman be the first one the man asks?

I suppose that a great deal depends on the connection between father and daughter. In my view, I think that Peter asking me was a sign that he recognized a healthy relationship between Katrina and myself. Moreso, I think that Katrina being pleased that Peter asked for my permission shows that a healthy relationship between us actually exists.

Time Off

2/20/2017

I haven't taken a sick day yet this year. So far, I have only needed a substitute for the day when I was coaching in the Battle of the Books competition. I had thought that I would have needed a couple of personal days by this point just to stay afloat with my classwork for Walden, but I have largely been able to stay on top of things. None of my illnesses this year have really been severe enough for me to stay home either (although there was one day that I would have been better off spending at home, but I didn't really realize that until after the fact).

Coming up, I will need to take one personal day to get Alex to the airport so she can have her interview in Marquette for the Rural Medicine Residency. Other than that, I don't think that I'll be taking a day off. Having said that, who knows what might happen ...

This is quite different than many preceding years as a teacher. Often I would find the need to take a "mental health day." Often, it was to get paperwork done: coursework for my masters or grading (either for school or for the college classes I was teaching--usually the latter). Sometimes it was due to the birth of one of my children (Trevor and Rowen in particular), and sometimes it was due to illness: either mine or one of my kids'. I still tried to not take off too many days in case of some future need, but I certainly used more than I have these past two years.

Come to think of it, we haven't had any snow days either (which is good as all of them get tacked to the end of the year). Perhaps the normal breaks in the calendar are enough respite that I haven't felt the desire to take a "mental health day." Perhaps I'm still too intimidated by the substitute system up here. Perhaps I know that I had to start my sick day bank from scratch yet again.

I just hope that I didn't jinx anything by writing about this ... or by mentioning that I could jinx it ...

The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

2/19/2017

Today's readings ask for us to make one of the most difficult of sacrifices: to love those who hate us. This is easily written, but almost impossible to follow. Yet, considering the state of our nation and our world today, I find this message to be one extraordinarily relevant. So many are obsessed with revenge and hatred that they forget those ideas are self-feeding monsters. The more they continue, the stronger they become.

Jesus asks us to give forgiveness, love, and charity just as we ask Him for those things. Rather than spouting hatred, hoping for terrible things to happen to those you disagree with, or giving up on our future, work towards making the world a better place by forgiving, praying for, and loving your enemies. To be clear, this does not mean accepting or condoning evil, but rather working towards the good.

I know it's an area where I need a great deal of work.

Change of Plans

2/18/2017

It was supposed to be a relatively lazy day where we watched a couple of movies, worked on our taxes, and cut hair. The only thing on my calendar for today was a choir practice. And then our power went wonky.

The lights were still on in the kitchen and the dryer and boiler were still running, but our bedroom light started growing dimmer, the water to the washer went down to a trickle, and the microwave stopped microwaving. We called our power company to report an outage and got a call back (a first for me). At the power company's request--and because we were still getting power to our garage, cabin, and several rooms in the house--we called in the electrician who we had used last year to change our circuit box (Brandon Huffer--whom I highly recommend) rather than take the chance with the $100 fee the power company would charge if the problem was on our end.

It was on the power company's end. One of the "legs" coming from the street had burned out (due to water getting into the connector and freezing). They replaced it and were quite polite (Janelle even recognized one as a regular through her checkout line). We were without power for about four hours, and I missed my choir practice.

We still got several things done: aside from most of our window lights, our Christmas decorations are now stored back in our garage; we watched Suicide Squad (which had a hard-to-follow plot, a too-gansta Joker, yet a mesmerizing charm); Trevor and I got to play a couple games of Starcraft with Jon; and Janelle cut the boys' and my hair. It wasn't what we were expecting, but it wasn't a bad day.

Languages

2/17/2017

I was reminded today of how much I have forgotten about the Japanese language. Granted, I never knew much to begin with, especially considering that I took three years of Japanese in high school and a year of conversational Japanese while in college. I also had two year-long attempts to learn French, partially because Janelle used to be fluent in the language (at least, when reading it). One year was in a class with Robert Jack and then another was spent using a set of CDs that my mother, Cheryl Marks, let me use while I was commuting an hour to and an hour from work every day (I stuck with it for quite a while until it started boring me to the point I did not feel completely safe driving while listening to, and repeating, them).

None of these attempts succeeded in placing a language other than English in my head for the long term. Nor are these the only languages I am interested in learning. I remember telling Grandma Marks that I was going to learn Chinese because I was fascinated with the language whenever we went to Chinatown in Chicago (which might be an underlying reason why I took Japanese in high school). I've always felt disconnected from my Polish roots as I don't know a word in Polish despite Grandma Marks being a native speaker of the language. A trip to visit Spanish-speaking cousins, as well as some of the characters on Sesame Street, made me want to learn Spanish ever since I was quite young. The Catholic mass as well as some of the foundations of English have made me want to learn Latin. Stories about our founding fathers made me also want to expand Latin studies into Greek. My time growing up in the Cold War made me want to learn Russian. The Assassin's Creed II games made Italian sound tremendously sexy. The musicality and flowing script of Arabic has had an appeal as well.

Nor has my desire to learn languages been limited to spoken languages. I tried teaching myself sign language for a while, but never really got beyond some simple, and some profane, expressions. I am also interested in the idea of coding programs in the various computer languages. To me, that has always seemed like a super power.

As of yet, I have not had the self-discipline (or the necessity) to learn a language other than English. Like so many things, so much depends on the way(s) we spend our time, and I am not always that productive with mine. Still, I envy those who have access to more than one language.

4.0

2/16/2017

Having now survived two terms, I am happy to say that I have received an "A" in all three of my classes. Considering how close a shave that was for my first term when I was only taking one class, I was a little worried about how I would do in the second term with two. Sure, I'm still a little sleep-deprived, but I ended both classes solidly in the A category, rather than just squeaking through.

I'm hoping that I will be able to keep this trend going throughout my program. So far, we have been able to juggle our schedule. It would, however, be entirely too easy for something to slip. As was, I had a couple of deadlines that I tight-roped.

The truly good news is that I have been learning from these courses. I'm not positive that the amount I have learned is in direct proportion to what I've had to pay, but this degree will hopefully help pay for itself over time. In truth, I couldn't afford to wait much longer to start the program to make certain it met the cost/worth balance.

For now, I'm going to enjoy having a few evenings and a weekend without any looming deadlines.

Snow!

2/15/2017

There were five inches of snow on the ground this morning. I was impressed with Mera's willingness and ability to make tracks through our unshoveled driveway in the early hours of the morning. I have to admit to being a little ditch-shy after my experience earlier this week.

Despite the added time shoveling (which is only increasing my desire for a four-wheeler with a plow attachment) and the lack of snow days up here, I'm still pro-snow. I do not have a rational explanation for why; it just makes me happier. I certainly prefer it over the freezing mud vistas that had started to become more common in my previous winters.

We have another special weather alert for tomorrow. The weather-predictors up here always tend to hedge their bets, but I really like today's announcement: "Although there is high confidence that much of Southcentral Alaska will see accumulating snow from this system, there is a still lower confidence on the exact timing and amounts of snowfall." The only thing they say for certain is that Turnagain Pass (the route to Anchorage) should expect significant snowfall again. It hasn't been a great week for travelling through there.