It's the End of the World As We Know It

Tonight's the end of the world. I'm stoked. I'm, like, this stoked:

It's gonna be awesome.

Christmas Time Is Here

Last night around midnight, as I was driving home on the slushy, wet, lovely white streets of Provo, the snow was still falling in thick heavy flakes as it had been doing since about 10:30 in the morning. I was taking it slow to account for any black ice the might be hidden under the blanket of white that covered the world. There didn't seem to be many people out and about (strange for a Friday night), but I wasn't complaining because I hate people I hate being around people crowds make me uncomfortable some moments of life are best experienced in solitude. Watching the snow fall late at night is such a moment.

As I waited for a stoplight to turn, I grabbed my iPod and queued up Diana Krall's "Christmas Time is Here":

When I was a kid I didn't like this song because I thought it sounded sad and depressing and all things that Christmas was not, but in the last few years it has become one of my favorites. 

The song seemed a perfect reflection of the world all around me. It was the melodic embodiment of that mildly ethereal, warm orange glow of streetlamp light  reflected off the fallen snow and gradually swallowed by the pitch black of the night sky. 

The song ended as I arrived back at my apartment and eased my car into a safe parking spot along the street. I got out of the car, shut the door, and looked up at the sky. Before going in and wrapping myself in a warm cocoon of blankets and sleep, I stood still in the street for a moment listening to the world. 

The only...sound [was] the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.*

Diana's voice rang in my mind and I smiled. The holidays are upon us.

*source

America and Patriotism

I voted today.

It was awesome. I felt so American. As I left Provo Peaks Elementary School, I pulled out the old music maker, rolled down my windows, and cranked this song as loud as I could while cruising the streets of Provo:

Naturally I was singing along as loud as I could as well. People were looking at me funny, but I didn't care. Because this is America. When Neil got done I turned it on over to this song:

Yes, I know it's a Vietnam protest song and not necessarily "patriotic." But that's the thing, protest is patriotic. You know 1st amendment and free speech and all that jazz. It's patriotic. like voting. And I voted today. Plus, people often think that it's a patriotic song. What's more American than being wrong about what a song means and then stubbornly owning it and not caring what people think about your interpretation of the song because you know you're right and ain't nothin' no one can do to change your mind. This is America!

When that song got over I decided that I needed an all-American lunch. My original plan today was dino chicken nuggets, but that didn't seem American enough. I mean, dinosaurs are worldwide. Nothing wrong with being worldwide, but I voted today, and this is America. So as Bruce got done, I put on some Ray:

and I made my way to get myself some real American lunch:

Yeah,  Big Mac. With a large fry. And a large, sugary soda. None of that diet crap. And even though I was pretty much done with the meal when I was about halfway through, I ate the whole thing anyway. Because this is America, and no one is going to dictate to me how much I should eat, not even my own appetite. I do what I want. It's a free country. This is America!

Alright, tongue-in-cheekiness aside, I actually really do love America and feel great patriotism for this country. Let me illustrate as best I can why I think America is so awesome with an anecdote. A couple of summers ago I was down in Emery with my family over the 24th of July, which of course is the biggest party day in Utah. For those of you unfamiliar with Emery, it's a small town in the middle of the South-central Utah desert. It has a population about about 200 people...and that number is ever-diminishing as the old folks in town pass on. Seriously, there are a lot of old people. My brother-in-law Graham once joked after going to church there one Sunday that he wanted to move to Emery and sell oxygen tanks because he'd make bank. It was funny because it's true.

Anyway, whenever possible my family likes to go down to Emery over the 24th to celebrate with the town because their festivities are second to none. One of the best parts of the town's festivities is the parade. As a family we often laugh as we remember the year that the parade traversed the parade route twice because the route was so short and there were so few participants. Anyway, this particular year my family and I were sitting across the street from the city park as we watched the parade go by. Now if you've never watched a parade with my family, you're missing out because it's a lot of fun. We scream and shout and cheer and generally make fools of ourselves, but we have a lot of fun doing it.

We were laughing and carrying on as we usually do as the Emery High School band came marching up the road playing one of those songs that all high school marching bands play. As they marched to where they were right in front of my family, they stopped and turned their backs on us. Someone wryly commented that they were shunning the out-of-towners (us), and we all laughed. But as they started playing Yankee Doodle I realized that they had stopped in that exact spot, and turned as they had for a reason. They'd done it in order to face the little memorial monument and flagpole that remembers all the young men from the small town of Emery who have served their country in the armed forces during wartime. As the band played, I thought of the dozens of young men from Emery, my grandfather included, who had answered their country's call to serve and protect throughout the years. Because my grandpa served in World War II, I thought about how during that war particularly, the young men who signed up to fight consisted of an entire generation of the hope of this small town. They were the future. They had the world open before them, and yet, even in this small and often forgotten corner of the nation, these young men decided that their country came first. Uncle Sam needed their help and they responded.

This naturally led me to think of the millions of veterans across the country, and the many small towns just like Emery who likely had similar stories. As I thought about this, the band, which I had momentarily forgotten, finished playing “She’s a Grand Ol’ Flag” and struck up “America the Beautiful.” The image-ridden lyrics of this great American standard ran through my mind, and the implicit appeal to God’s grace, in conjunction with my thoughts of the sacrifice of the millions of proud Americans that have served in our armed forces, brought a lump to my throat. I was never more proud and grateful to be an American. 

On days like today, as I fulfill my civic duty, I can't help but to think of fifth grade when my teacher Mrs. Plazier gave us an assignment to memorize Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. This was one of the most impacting experiences that I had during the formative years of my youth. To this day, some 15 years later, I can still recite the words of the Gettysburg Address, and those words have had a large impact on the development and maintenance of my American patriotism. One particular section sticks out to me as it describes the ideal of freedom and our collective cause as freedom-loving citizens:

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought              here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 

Freedom was the cause Lincoln was talking about. He was fighting a war over whether freedom extended to all men and women regardless of race. He wanted to make it abundantly clear that liberty is indeed one of mankind’s God-given and unalienable rights. In reflecting on this, I have realized that America’s dedication to this cause is what really sparks the flame of my love of country. For centuries the huddled masses have clamored to our shores in search of a place where freedom is practiced and preached. They’ve come in search of a land where they might make something of themselves no matter the station in which they were born. Though the phrase is trite and a bit hackneyed, they come in search of a "land of opportunity." The cause of freedom is the essence of what it is to be American. That is what I love. Lincoln wasn’t content to let the soldiers on the field take up the fight for freedom while the rest of the nation sat back on its haunches and watched. Lincoln’s call to action and dedication to this cause was intended for the rest of the nation. It was intended for us. He was challenging the people of his time to take up the torch of freedom and live valiantly by its tenets. His challenge, though delivered 145 years ago, remains as true for us today as it was for them then.

As I go off rhapsodizing about America, and freedom and patriotism, I realize that I'm probably coming across like one of those uninformed idealists who embraces American exceptionalism and refuses to acknowledge that America can or ever has done anything wrong. That's not the case. I know we have a bit of a pock-marked past. It hasn't always been sunshine and roses, and there are aspects to American culture and society that I frankly don't agree with at all. But that's the beauty of it all, we don't have to all think the same things. We can disagree. We can fight with each other. We can protest if we like. We can, and should, think critically about the way things are done and ask ourselves if there isn't a better way. I'm not saying that this is the way all nations should be run; frankly I think that's absurd. But it works for us here, and I think it works wonderfully. Yeah Congress is full of a bunch cotton-headed ninny-mugginses who can't get anything done, and I'm not real keen on the uber-partisan hacks on both sides of the aisle who preach their political agendas as if they spoke the word of God. Yeah I'd like to see changes and reforms in our education programs and immigration laws and campaign-funding laws and any number of other issues that I think aren't working right. But the beauty of America is that we can make those changes. We're free to work through these issues. None of us really knows for certain the absolute truth of what's best in every situation, but we can all work together to try and figure it out. Or we can refuse to work together and fight and yell at each other. We can choose. We can do what we want. And I love it.

I realize it's not cool to be patriotic, and I may be falling victim to what Kenneth Burke calls "Identification by Inaccuracy" here, but I don't care. I love America. And I voted today.

Now I'm gonna go lay on the couch and try not to puke up a Big Mac and fries.

Facing Cold Mornings

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning and it's cold and I don't want to get out of my bed or do anything at all, I'll reach over to my bookbag, grab my laptop and queue up this video:


Watching the video, I realize that getting out of bed and facing the frozen, heartless weather is the American thing to do and that cowering away from it is a disgrace to Apollo Creed's memory. It pushes me out of bed and into the cold, hard world for another day.

And it gives me a sweet soundtrack for my morning to boot.

Lessons Learned from the Music Listenin' Dude

This afternoon I decided to go sit outside the library while I ate my lunch. It's a lovely, sunny afternoon, and I doubt there will be many more of these that will be warm enough to allow for me to sit outside comfortably in my shirtsleeves. So I took advantage. While out eating my sandwich I sat near this guy:

I realize that isn't a great picture, but allow me to point out a few things. 1) The dude is asleep. 2) He doesn't have any book or anything else in his lap that he was looking at before falling asleep. I realize his backpack is blocking that out, but trust me, no book, no nothing. 3) He has his headphones in. Again, the picture quality is bad, but again trust me. 4) He's barefoot. He didn't get there that way; you can see his removed flip-flop next to him. 5) He's sitting in the shade. The light you see on his shirt is a reflection from a window, not direct light from the sun. 6) Look at the ledge he's leaning against. In fact, here's a better look at its ledgeiness:

Clearly that's not the kind of thing someone leans against who is planning on falling asleep. If he wanted to sleep, he would have found one of the numerous couches on campus and laid out comfortably. 

So now we can draw a few conclusions. He didn't come here to sleep. He didn't come here to study or read. He didn't come to catch some rays. He tried to make himself comfortable (flip flop removal). Finally, and here's the key, he put in his headphones to listen to some tunes before unintentionally falling asleep. From this evidence the conclusion that I draw is this: he came to this spot with the express purpose of listening to his music.

Just think of it. Here you have a college student who, midterm, decided to find time to sit down as comfortably as he could, intent on doing nothing more than listening to music. He didn't feel like he had to fill every waking moment with school work, or on his phone checking his facebook status, or playing with some gadget of some sort. He sat down on the cement, took off his sandals, queued up some sweet tunes, and just let it ride. 

I feel like there's a lesson in this somewhere. Let's see what we come up with.

Usually we only ever listen to music when doing something else or if we're at some kind of live music event of some sort. We listen to it while working, while driving, while exercising, or while doing any number of other activities that take the forefront of our thoughts. Background music, then, has largely become the place of music in our society. But why do we listen to music in these instances? It's because it calms us down. It keeps us focused. It rouses our souls and gives us the energy we need to complete a task. It keeps us awake when needed. We constantly use music as a means of controlling and channeling our attitudes, emotions, and states of mind. Why then, do we relegate it secondhand status?

We hear a lot about stopping to smell the roses, or look at the roses, or prick our fingers on the roses or any number of other things we can do with roses. In this vein I feel like we need to stop using music as a means to an end, but rather promote listening to music as an end all its own.

So here's what I say, we (and when I say "we" I of course mean "I") need to occasionally take some time out of the business of life to just sit down and listen to awesome musics. As to the question of which musics are most awesome, I have no answer. Each must answer that individually. But I feel like no matter what musics we deem awesome, this mindset and this act could prove a benefit for any and all. 

Anyway, these are my procrastinatory thoughts on this the 8th day of October in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve.

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career.

all my instincts
they return
and the grand facade
so soon will burn
without a noise
without my pride
I reach out from the inside

Rainy Days and Mondays

A week ago today was one of those mornings. I'm pretty sure that Jim Davis:

 and Karen Carpenter:



were thinking of Mondays like last week's when brainstorming and coming up with ideas for their work.

It actually started off great, interestingly enough. I'd woken up at 6:00 am, as per usual, and realizing that because I was just conferencing with students all day and I didn't need to prepare a lesson, I could sleep in a bit more. Unfortunately I slept in a bit more than "a bit more," eventually waking up at 7:42 am. That doesn't seem too bad except that my first student conference was scheduled for 8. I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom to shower. I showered quick as you like, jumped out of the shower, grabbed my towel and took off for my bedroom.

As I was running past the laundry room, I heard a distinctive snap and I stopped running. Considering the mouse problems we'd been dealing with, I knew what had happened. I peeked into the laundry room and there was the mouse we'd seen prancing about the basement like he owned the place. Except he wasn't prancing; he was writhing on the ground, not quite dead but with a clearly broken neck. (I would include a picture here, but seems a bit macabre.) Unfortunately, considering I was already late, I didn't have time to take care of the problem. I left his twitching body and continued the sprint to my room.

I got to my room, dried and dressed in a flash, and bent down to reach into my closet for my shoes. As I did, I saw a largish black spot on my wall. Not having put my glasses on quite yet, I couldn't see it very clearly. I made a conscious effort to focus my eyes, and in doing so saw that the black spot, mere inches from my outstretched hand, was in fact one of the larger black widow spiders I've ever seen. Now I'm not typically one to be scared of spiders, but ever since I was little, black widows have given me the willies. This mostly stems from the time when, as an 8 year old kid, I went down to the basement of our old house to get some dog food for Keesh, and as I stuck my hand into the dog food bag, a black widow came crawling out onto my hand. I'm sure I shrieked like...well like an 8 year old boy, and ever since that time black widows and I have not been on the friendliest of terms.

So not only did I have to deal with the scene of a twitching mouse corpse replaying over in my mind, but now I was facing a childhood bugbear as well. I killed the spider, leaving a large smear of spider guts on my closet wall, and with a racing heart I hurried off to my student conferences.

Arriving to campus later than I'd hoped, I had to park in the law school parking lot and make the 1/2 mile dash (in jeans) to to carrels. I got to my office sweating mildly and just 5 minutes late to meet with my first student ...who hadn't and never did show. I was a little frustrated that I'd run like mad across campus for no reason, but I was also relieved that I could catch my breath before the next student came in. As I was waiting for the next conference, I checked my email. Sitting there was an email from one of my professors. It was the email I'd been waiting for/dreading; he was returning the paper that I just turned in to him last week.

This is the same professor who I describe here. He is one of the more important men in the department, he intimidates me, and I really, really want him to approve of me as a student and a scholar. Unfortunately, the outcome today wasn't equal to the one from the post I just linked to. Rather than saying I'd done fine work, he gave me a few pointed suggestions and didn't give me a grade but rather asked that I revise. I'm very grateful for his suggestions - they helped me to finally see where I was going wrong in my thinking for that paper - but all the same it was hard to see that this professor, whose good favor I consciously seek and whose approval desperately want, wasn't keen on my work.

So to summarize: I got up late, I watched a mouse writhe and twitch as he died, I had to kill a crazy huge spider whose guts splattered all over my closet wall and who had nearly given me a heart attack, my first appointment of the day didn't show up, my professor didn't like my work, and on top of it all, it had been raining all morning.

As you can see, I was in a rotten mood; that is, I was in a rotten mood until my students started coming in to talk through their opinion editorials. My attitude almost immediately shifted.

It was incredible. As I helped my students talk through the ideas they were writing about and find better, more persuasive and more sophisticated ways of expounding their arguments, and as I saw the excitement in their eyes as they talked about these ideas and topics that (most of them) were genuinely interested in and even passionate about, I got happier and happier. With each student that came in to talk to me the memory of the earlier garbage that had made me somewhat grouchy dissipated more and more until I could barely remember it at all.

At the end of the day I had conferenced with 30+ students for 15 minutes each, and I was exhausted. Exhausted but pleased and content. In thinking back to how awful the morning had been, I was grateful that 1) I've chosen the field that I've chosen because teaching writing and rhetoric is so fulfilling and soul-satisfying, and 2) I have the opportunity to actually participate in my field before graduating and officially joining it by teaching general ed writing classes.

While it started out pretty crappy, it totally redeemed itself in the end. And that makes it all worth it.