A Day in D.C.

A group of us took a photo trip to Washington D.C. on Monday. Melissa, her sister Torie, Miles, Sammie, and me. After a grueling lunch at the pub in Denton (which is usually great, but our waiter was having a WAY off day) we made the trek to the Metro station. Our goals for the day were simple: take some good pictures, visit the Lincoln Memorial, and walk off our burgers.

Our first stop off the Metro was the Air and Space Museum. We really only went in to use the facilities, but the siren call of NASA ice cream and WWII relics kept us wandering for a while. We meandered our way through that museum and on to the Native American Museum, which we only got to see a smidge of since they were closing.

After another ice cream break, we split up for a while. Miles went to the National Museum, while the girls went to the botanical gardens and the capitol building. For future reference, the capitol is phenomenal for two things...great pictures of architecture and prize-winning people-watching. Once we'd exhausted the photographic possibilities of the fountain (much discussion of f-stops and shutter speeds...geekiness at its finest), we meandered our way towards the Natural History Museum with another stop at a big outdoor fountain/hangout place tucked into the sculpture garden.



A quick walk through Natural History. Hope Diamond, soil samples from all 50 states (Louisiana had a worm!), petrified coelocanths, and the elephant in the lobby. Sammie and I caught up with Melissa and Torie, who had gone bug-hunting in the insect zoo. Met up with Miles outside and began the trek to the Washington Monument, Reflecting Pool, and Lincoln Monument.

Pictures of these three monuments, no matter how well-composed, beautifully lit, or perfectly exposed, do no justice to them. The sheer mass of the structures is overwhelming. People were scattered everywhere for the half-mile stretch, playing frisbee and kickball, reading, walking their dogs, taking all the standard tourist snapshots, and feeding the incredibly tame squirrels. Lincoln himself is breathtaking. I can't fathom the work that went into its creation and maintenance since then. The detail of the statue and the walls around him are as sharp as I imagine they were on the day they were carved. Miles and I watched the sun set over DC from the back of the monument where a few others discovered the gorgeous view and lack of crowds.



Finally, we all decided that the photographic festivities were at an end. We were starving. Dinner in Chinatown was calling. Many, many blocks later, we stumbled down into a Metro station and found our way to food. Sadly, Fudruckers won. I would have preferred some hole-in-the-wall nook owned by a tiny Chinese grandma, but no such luck. It was pretty late. Hunger satiated, back to the Metro and then home.

Next time...Coney Island!

Frickin' Freaks

Frickin' bench full of frickin' freaks. Why can't the bus just get here when the schedule says it will. Now I have to sit on this bench, the only normal one around, with these two nutjobs in their jeans and t-shirts. What the hell. Why can't they just blend in? Noooooooo, though...some people just have to stick out and be all "Hey! Look at me! Look how different and original I am!" They need to be locked in a cage at the zoo marked "DO NOT FEED and definitely DO NOT MATE." Seriously.

Why? I'll bet they have hippie-freak names, too. Like Andy. Or Bob. I'm sure they came from those dysfunctional homes, too, where everyone ate dinner together and they had a family room with a frickin' sofa and TV. Damn freaks. Freaks and their Golden Retrievers and peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut off and family vacations to Disney, all posed with that Mickey Mouse asshole.

Frickin' freaks in their frickin' jeans. Where'd you buy those, freak? The freaky mall? Did you eat PIZZA in the FOOD COURT? Did you get a COOKIE?

I hate you both. You two are exactly what's wrong with society. I oughta jab this cigarette in your eyeballs.

Point, Revisited

My daughter has begun to point. She's 11 months old, and she points at all sorts of things and says, "Dah!" I'm assuming that what she's actually saying is, "Mom, can you please tell me what that may be?" I then proceed to tell her all about it, whether it's a banana or a mirror or a pile of dirty laundry. Sometimes she does this from far away, so I have to guess at what she's finding so interesting, and I think I may have inadvertently misidentified things once or twice. I guess I'll know when she comes home from preschool upset with me after finding out that a turtle and a lamp are not one and the same.

It's kind of fun, though, when I see that little finger start to extend and I have a moment to see what's interesting in a child's eyes. She's definitely found some favorite things. She points at mirrors and animals and photos of people more than anything. We spent half an hour pointing at the family portraits at my grandmother's house, talking about everyone as she would point.

I wish all communication could be so simple. I guess that's where the phrases "What's the point?" and "Get to the point!" come in. With kids, it's pretty straightforward. Question + answer = conversation. No talking in circles or unspoken insinuations like when talking among adults. They don't overanalyze your tone or wonder about hidden meanings. I thing "grown-ups" have a lot to learn from kids.

Point

"What's the point?!?!" I hear. Every semester, without fail, a voice pipes up from the back of the room, usually accompanies by a snicker. Sometimes punctuated with "This is stupid."

Not many words bring me pain the way these do. I am not an English teacher because I got good grades in English when I was in school. I am not an English teacher because I love grading essays and assignments. I am not an English teacher because I wanted summers off (that's a myth, actually). I am an English teacher because I love language. I love to read, I love to write, I love discovery through the written word. I love the fact that, throughout history, writers have put quill to parchment and pen to paper and created enduring works that speak a language larger than themselves.

To the question "Why we gotta read this?" (which is painful in its own way) I respond "Because you will be a better person for doing it." Human nature knows no century, no social class, no genre. Regardless of place or time, characters live on in volumes of greed, desire, madness, loss, love, and hope. There is an inherent immortality in writing that is the reason we peruse the stories of Beowulf and Hamlet.

Words = knowledge = power. People don't hesitate to feed their cars, their egos, and their wallets. Why on earth would someone choose not to feed their heart, mind, and soul?

Boxes (an expansion)

Four giggling girls,
Three decks of cards,
Two watermelons,
One refrigerator box.

All day we played in that old raggedy box, smothering in the southern August humidity. We laughed the day away, sweat-frizzled and grubby-footed from multiple trips through the yard to fetch popsicles and corn dogs.

Is there a greater gift to a child than a big, empty box? My daughter just had her first birthday and she has already experienced the joys of boxes. Beaten like drums, turned sideways as caves, scooted like sleds, and propped open like traps, her boxes were the highlights of her first Christmas.

Her talking puppy, constantly bleating "Hug me!" and "You're wonderful!" was a wonderful and amusing toy. Her new blue stuffed elephant was a cozy pal for cuddling. The dancing chicken doing the chicken dance was a fabulous distraction. The boxes, though, were magnetic, enchanting her fledgling imagination and drawing her into their infinite possibilities.

Boxes are the healthiest toys. They promote physical activity and stir the sense of wonder we all have within ourselves, whether we're infant children or adult children. They transport us to other worlds in an instant. What else on the shelves of Toys 'R' Us can accomplish that?

Bad

Bad girl.
Bad dog.
Big Bad Leroy Brown.
Bad News Bears.
Michael Jackson was Bad.
Bad writing.

There we go...

Bad writing. OK, kids. Here we go. As a teacher of Creative Writing, it is excruciatingly difficult for me to "grade" work. It's entirely too easy for someone to say "What's with this grade? It's CREATIVE!! How can it be wrong?!?!" Good question.

In art, there are techniques to learn and if those techniques are not executed appropriately, the final product is genuinely wrong. Same for music. There are chords that work and chords that don't and if they don't, the final product is, again, genuinely wrong. While there are techniques for writing, some of the "rules" are so ambiguous it's hard to draw the line between right and wrong. I can say that I've read some writing that was so horrendous, I felt like I lost IQ points after reading it.

How is a reader to know, though? Where is the line that divides the brilliant from the beastly? The genius from the gibberish? Consider if you will the uniquely burdensome position in which I am placed every time I have to grade a piece of writing. In my opinions and on my shoulders rest the grades of my students. I'd like to think I'm a good judge. It's rare that I toot my own trumpet - usually I'm my own worst enemy - but I am confident about my writing resume' and my ability to sift through the debris and find the nuggets worth keeping.

Writing with no coherence between characters, plot, and setting = BAD.

Writing made up of a string of disconnected sentences = BAD.

Writing dialogue that sounds less natural than daytime soaps = BAD.

Writing a lot of words that essentially say nothing = BAD.

Writing that contains foul language just to try to get away with it = BAD.

When I am grading student work, I ask myself these questions continuously. It's rare that I will place something in the truly BAD category, but if I do, it is not done lightly.

Repeat

I admit it. When I was in high school, I had to repeat two classes due to no one's fault but my own, seriously cutting into my fun time. Thankfully, I ended up loving those two classes but it still would have been nice to have gotten them right the first time.

In my sophomore year, I failed Algebra II Honors. Miserably. There were no overly indulgent counselors at my school, so I was pretty much stuck with my choice. I guess I was in honors because all of my other classes were in honors, but I am far from an honors math student. Mrs. Carter taught it like it was a college class. Lightning speed, and if there were any questions, the answer was the same. "That's just the way you do it." No pause for explanation whatsoever. Needless to say, my one and only "C" in that course was the bright spot in a sea of "F"'s. I had to retake the class and I waited until my senior year to do it. (To my credit, I waited so I wouldn't have Algebra and Chemistry at the same time. That would have been a sequel of disaster.)

Senior year with Mr. Roca was such a polar opposite, it's still amazing to me. Not only did I pass with straight A's, I actually helped some people pass. The slower pace combined with a relaxed teacher (sometimes too relaxed) who actually answered my questions made a universe of difference. I can still hear his echo... "Come on gang. Are y'all cheating? Don't cheat." I think about the way he helped me frequently now that I'm a teacher.

Junior year marked another moment of shame in my academic history. I failed Mr. Paine's American History class, also miserably. It wasn't the same as math, because my ability wasn't up to par. I simply couldn't stand the man. He droned on and on for 55 minutes a day, and I spent those 55 minutes doodling on my desk. "Angie loves Todd." "Angie loves Juan." "Angie loves Jeff." (Isn't teenage love grand?)

Another senior year slot was then taken by a second attempt at American History, this time with Mrs. LeBlanc. She was one of those teachers that's been teaching the class for so long she just goes on autopilot and doesn't really notice what's going on in the room. That was fine, because it gave me, Carlos, Scarlett, and Nick lots of time to visit and plan our weekends. We all aced the class anyway.

I suppose somewhere I eventually learned a lesson. When I saw myself slacking off in college, I recognized it in time to take a break and go back when I was truly ready. I can't say with 100% conviction that retaking the classes was a mistake because they were so much fun, but I did learn to take my education more seriously.