this week on "things i do not want to eat"

indian summer

this morning, i was the piano teacher with a champagne hangover. i made one of my students, a seven year old girl, cry over half notes. i spoke with her father about this afterwards, and he smiled. "dont worry about it; she's had a long week," he said. "yesterday, she burst into tears when she found out that the butter we were using wasn't organic."

i dont feel bad about that anymore.

hangover cure at the fair: ten dollars for a palm-reading and five dollars for a soydog with extra sauerkraut. this is the best of humboldt for fifteen bucks.

the woman who read my palm hadn't shaved her arms in a couple of days and told me i'd have three children, two girls, one boy, one marriage, a smart upcoming career change, a lot of writing and school in my future, that i would move to the midwest and then back with my family "in the south" and in three or four years time, meet my soul mate, whom i would know immediately upon seeing, and that my life would be healthy and extend into my 90's. i spent a lot of the time not staring at her beard.

some years ago, "in the south," i had my cards read. the woman, russian this time, also imparted the tri-child prophecy. i dont recall her having a beard.

this doesnt mean i'm giving either of them credit.

today, one of my students expressed surprise that i have a teacher.

"and my teacher has a teacher. well, many teachers, actually. everybody has a teacher." i let that sink in. "except the untaught, of course," i added.

man do i have a teacher. she was so excited to move to california that she announced in one of the group keyboard classes that she "bought two svimsoots."

but humboldt is as humboldt does; she asked one of her students "vy she did not practice, and she said she lives on the beach."

i have wonderful roommates :D

your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger

When we listen primarily for what we "ought" to be doing with our lives, we may find ourselves hounded by external expectations that can distort our identity and integrity. There is much that I ought to be doing by some abstract moral calculus. But is it my vocation? Am I gifted and called to do it? Is this particular ought a place of intersection between my inner self and the outer world, or is it someone else's image of how my life should look?

When I follow only the oughts, I may find myself doing work that is ethically laudable but not mine to do. A vocation that is not mine, no matter how externally valued, does violence to the self—in the precise sense that it violates my identity and integrity on behalf of some abstract norm. When I violate myself, I invariably end up violating the people I work with. How many teachers inflict their own pain on heir students, the pain that comes from doing what never was, or no longer is, their true work?

In contrast to the strained and even violent concept of vocation as an ought, Frederick Buechner offers a more generous and humane image of vocation as "the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

In a culture that sometimes equates work with suffering, it is revolutionary to suggest that the best inward sign of vocation is deep gladness—revolutionary but true. If a work is mine to do, it will make me glad over the long haul, despite the difficult days, Even the difficult days will ultimately gladden me, because they pose the kinds of problems that can help me grow in a work if it is truly mine.

If a work does not gladden me in these ways, I need to consider laying it down. When I devote myself to something that does not flow from my identity, that is not integral to my nature, I am most likely deepening the world's hunger rather than helping to alleviate it.

-

from: The Heart of a Teacher

Identity and Integrity in Teaching

by parker j palmer

thanks to katie for passing this along to me.

i ran 95 miles during the month of august! i'm fucking proud of myself! the knees are feeling it, though. for september: less running. more swimming. by the end of the semester i'm gonna look like this:





or not.



i want to be a sociolinguistic historian alpinist photographer world-traveler chef commedian triathalete warrior woman fluent in old english and the prepared piano music of john cage.

"does switzerland sing the song of your heart?" he asked.

"no," i told him. i think that was a lie?

this morning i woke up and began to practice in my head. sometimes i'll sit down with a piece of music and work on it away from a piano, but the early-morning, still-in-bed spontaneous musical laboring hasn't happened to me in a long time, and, let me tell you, it doesn't bode well for my social life.

one of the wonderful and creepy things about language is that one person can use it to put an image into another person's head, like food into a pantry, or books on a shelf.

picture a bulldog.
standing on it's hind legs.
in a long purple skirt.
with a bulgarian accent.
and a confident scowl.

you have just imagined my new piano teacher. her fingers are like hotdogs, the palms of her hands like small rotisserie chickens. she walks belly-out business-first and calls me "emily-sveetie." my first lesson, last wedesday, lasted two hours. i didnt cry, i'll have you know, but that doesnt mean i didnt want to.

which means it was perfect.




a restricted code will arise where the form of the social relation is based upon closely shared identifications, upon an extensive range of shared expectations, upon a range of common assumptions ... such codes will emerge as both controls and transmitters of the culture ... meaning does not have to be fully explicit, a slight shift of pitch or stress, a small gesture, can carry a complex meaning.

-basil berstien

question of the week: how do you, in real life, pronounce the word sandwich?

personally, i say sanwidge.

i momentarily parted from a promenade down the hallway to pop my head into the office of a vocal faculty member.

"elizabeth," i inquired, "how do you say sandwich?"
"sand witch," she replied, all of the consonants and vowels clear and resonant enough to be painted into a still portrait with fruit. "and sometimes sammich."
"sammich. is that done intentionally to be cute?"
"yes. but if i'm actually saying it, i will say it sandwitch." she's a professor of singing (think about that one, to profess singing), which means that she gets paid to be a stickler about clippy pronunciation.
"i say sanwidge," i informed her.
"get out of my office."

what do you say?

and on an unrelated note: cheerios.

first day of classes. swimming. tried to crash a poli sci course that meets once a week for three hours in the evening, lead gallantly by your mail-order crazy-for-the-sake-of-crazy teacher who spent the whole three hours throwing a temper tantrum about america. okay, i thought, i've done this before. i can get through this course, and graduate. he wont be opening up seats until next week, though, and i'm not waiting around that long to figure out if i can get out of here this semester.

so i walked up to him after class was over and asked, "will seating priority be given to graduating seniors?"

he smiled wide in my face and laughed. "absolutely not! no way!"

fucking jackass. can we have at least a smidgeon of facilitation, here, faculty? a little grace? was the wild laugher totally necessary? this is a 100 level general ed class.

i'm going back to work in switzerland next summer and summer absolutely cannot come soon enough.