Evil Empire I and II and Native Son

How does a company become the largest (or seemingly so) shipping company?  Obviously, by not delivering packages and by disseminating inaccurate information.  Trying to get my new ibook from FedEx this was a test of my patience.  Thursday, they attempted a delivery at noon.  I called and requested a delivery after 4pm.  No problem.  The next day, another notice with attempted delivery at noon.  I call.  They don't deliver after 4pm or on Saturdays.  I'll have to pick it up or have the sender redeliver.  Fine.  Pick it up.  Where?  They give me an address but tell me I have to call on Monday to find out the hours they are open (no Saturday pick-up).  Monday I am told I have to make an appointment: someone will call me on Tuesday.  Tuesday passes.  No call.  I call the dreaded 1-800 number and hope I will not be the cruel, crazy woman that the poor FedEx worker dreads speaking to each day.  This guy tells me I don't need an appointment; I may pick up my package anytime between 8am and 7pm. I suppress my urge to scream and thank the man for the good news, hoping he is correct.  Finally, I make it up to the FedEx office.  I enter the boringly beige office.  There is a lone bulletin board covered in sports photos behind an empty desk.  A woman emerges from behind the beige office partition to ask if I need help.  She looks over my shoulder as she speaks to me, as if the human eye contact is too disconcerting and unfamiliar to cope with.  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she says as she disappears down the long beige hallway.  As I wait, I check out the employee bulletin boards behind me.  There is all kind of inspiring and cheerful notices about worker’s comp and the prohibitions against soliciting while working.  In the middle is a poster promoting the importance of teamwork with a photo of about 20 skydivers all linked in a star shape with uniforms of varying colors so each point of the star is a different primary color.  Call me cynical, but I anyone walks in, looks at this photo, and thinks, “Yes!  Today I am going to work extra hard for the success of team FedEx.”  I think the fact that I am in this office is proof of that.  Though I am trying to keep my loathing for FedEx from spewing out, I suddenly grow thankful that I am not employed in a place where I must endure droning monotony of cubicle life.  At least my motivational posters have useful information, such as what is a noun.  I want to run out of that place as I feel the life force be sucked out of me, absorbed by the non-color trying to find something to sustain itself.  Just in time, the woman returns with my ibook.  
However, when I get home, I don’t dare open the box, as I know it will only lead to hours of play and no work and no sleep.  A dangerous proposition since my school decided to tell us grades would be due a week earlier than expected, thus giving me less than a week to prep my grades and enter them into the now all computerized system.  I, of course, have put off grading book reviews and key papers last week so that I could go hiking with Grooveva in Malibu and have lunch with Jen on Sunday.  In addition, I still have midterms to give and grade as well as the daily grades that need to be entered in my grade book.  Each task is minimal alone, but cumulatively, it is a massive task.  

Then, in the midst of all this chaos and stress, the last pile of grading:  the senior midterm, an in class essays about the first section of Richard Wright’s Native Son, “Fear.”  For a year, I have been drilling into their head the importance of an engaging intro, of a clear thesis, of focused paragraphs, of using quotes and following quotes with commentary, of a conclusion that says something worth saying.  Always, it seems to fall on deaf ears.  I grade a few papers that are B’s, C’s, and D’s.  Then, there is one that is great.  And another.  By great, I mean they have original interpretations, which they use quotes and commentary to support (though often in a not very sophisticated, compelling, or in-depth manner).  Paragraphs are focused.  I am breezing through, not caught up in confusion of unclear sentences and unstructured writing.  Most even cited the pages correctly and used quotation marks.  Almost all the students underlined the title of the book.  These are small, small victories.  Maybe I seem like a pushover teacher, but for in-class essays (essentially first drafts), this is amazing.  I was so proud – a bit of myself – of them.  For once, I felt like I assisting in moving my students towards their full potential.  I also give much credit to Richard Wright for writing a book that finally seems to have captured my students’ interest.  Some even used the psychological and sociological theories we have discussed.  The only thing more rewarding was to see their faces reflecting the pride I felt the next day when I told them how pleased I was with their work and returned the papers.  Several students who no one would expect received 100%.  As they get ready to head out (and many write how scared they really are in their opening writings), maybe this one little victory will give them the confidence needed to face that fear and succeed, whatever success may be for them.  

So, as the Evil Empires, such as FedEx and high school administration and school districts might conspire to keep us distracted from personal growth, progress, and introspection though exhausting our bodies and spirits, we still have great literature to inspire us to rise above these menial concerns and to aggressively pursue our passion and our ideals.  Of course, this includes neglecting duties for long hikes, salsa dancing, homemade sangria, and blogging.

Humiliation

Humiliation. Sometimes this is just what is needed to nudge us out of our comfort zone into a new, better version of ourselves. But damn humiliation is not tough to swallow.

I started voice lessons. I agreed to them in a drunken state on my birthday. Maybe, subconsciously, as I enter a new year of life I decided I needed a new life adventure. But voice lessons, after a lifetime of letting others convince me that I cannot sing? Then again, I have managed for two years in the choir. Now, our new choir director, glutton for punishment, I think, wants to prove (to himself or me is questionable) that I can sing alone (maybe not solo performance, but alone without one of my trusty altos next to me).

Lesson One: Breathing. The aspiring yogi that I am, I figured this would be easy. I teach breathing in my yoga classes. In fact, for all those who wonder, yoga breathing and breathing for singing, while similar, are two very different animals. And this one had me by the tail. Wrought with nervousness, I then lost my ability to breath properly at all – I am breathing backwards to the point where instructed to suck in air, I blew it out. I don’t think I felt this much like an idiot since, well, my first yoga class. Patient in his frustration, my instructor suggested I lie on the floor. Then, he put is hands on my stomach and told me to breathe out while resisting his hands. Despite that, I was a bit horrified at him pressing into my squishy stomach and my pelvis; I think I passed this test with excellence. All that yoga did pay off a bit. In our half hour lesson, we never got beyond breathing. I do not think I improved much, if any, in that half hour. Yet, he insisted that we would pick up next week, determined to show the world that even I can learn to sing well.

I still have some doubts and only hope I will shed my embarrassment before next week to avoid a repeat of this lesson. Perhaps trust in myself and my voice, letting go of the doubts and self-consciousness, is the real lesson I am to learn. In that case, I hope my instructor is blessed with a good dose of patience, as this may be a long haul.

How to Make Your English Teacher Blush

Sometimes, there are just certain passages you want to avoid reading aloud in class. For instance, the movie theater masturbation scene in Native Son. I don't know if these students planned this question to test my reaction or if it was sincere, but today, at the end, when I say something like, "Anymore questions." One of my best participants raises his hand and asks, "Could you explain the movie theater scene."

I pause. "What exactly do you not understand? I think the scene is pretty clear. I really don’t think I need to explain that."

"I'm just not sure . . . I mean, I think . . .”

"What you think you understand is correct. I don't think I need to explain that to you."

Everyone laughs, then insists that I do.

I laugh, feel myself beginning to blush, trying to gain some professional composure.
Other students who have not read that far want to know what it is.

"Page 32," is mumbled through the room. Students eagerly flip to find the page.

"Just think about polishing the wand," says another of my best students, the other who instigated the question.

We all lose it.

“Let’s be professional,” I admonish him half-heartedly. “Well, if your confusion is because you are reading this and thinking surely our teacher would not gives us this to read and you are trying to figure out what is really happening, well, you got it right the first time.”

Finally, the student who originally asked the question says, "But, I still don't get the point of it. It just seems that we could do without that scene."

I, thinking, ah, yes, back on track, focus on narrative, say, "Well, what does it tell us about Bigger." As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I try really hard to keep a straight face. Can't do it.

It is good to end the day on laughter, even if it is at my own expense. (Or, as my earlier class would say, using their latest vocabulary word -- mockery -- even if it requires me making a mockery out of myself.)

Twists and Turns

Starting on my birthday, I had the anti-birthday treat: juice fasting rather than cake. However, this (or perhaps my belief that I am getting younger actually kicked-in in reality) initiated a week now of detoxification (except for the drunken escapades of last Friday). In yoga, twisting poses are greatly detoxifying. My discovery is that it goes both ways. Since my detox birthday, (I sound like an addict, which I am not) my twists in yoga have deepened exponentially. It is a beautiful thing to find new levels of challenge and understanding -- physically and spiritually. Perhaps the addictive quality of yoga is that you know, even when in the midst of a plateau, that if you stick with it long enough, your will find your plateau has risen to heightens previously unimagined. Moreover, opening of new opportunities in other areas of my life usually parallels the breaking of barriers in my asana practice. Namaste.

My showbiz resume

My showbiz resume

Who said it is tough to be famous in LA? Perhaps if you have narrow definitions of fame, such as people beyond your circle for friends knowing or caring whom you are. However, for us more open-minded and humble hippies-at-heart, fame is easily won even when not sought.

First, the song on my profile page is my claim to musical fame. Do you hear the lovely saxophone trio, commonly known as triage? Well, I am one third of that triage. I know you are impressed beyond expression, so do not faint when I tell you I was also part of the kazoo choir featured on that song.

Next, if you were one of the lucky ones to get a free ticket (so vital in case you didn’t want to be one of the five people not in box seats who were too inhibited to move down to the empty box seats) to the Easter Sunrise Service at the prestigious Hollywood Bowl, you may have spotted me as one of the burgundy robed singers in the adult community choir. Unfortunately, many of the featured ensembles in the ridiculously long hour and a half service (prolonged by the fact that all the coffee I drank to get myself there and awake at 4:45am was sitting in my bladder), were not much better than my former group, triage (not be confused with the quality of Brandon’s music, that is – he really did want us to sound like a high school marching band). Nonetheless, the only important thing (besides all that stuff about Easter and Jesus, of course) is that I can now say I sang on the Hollywood Bowl stage. I must apologize to my musician friends who deserve this honor far more than I do.

Finally, the credit of which I am most proud is the least recognized – singing with the TLUMC choir. We are a small and humble group and our singing. Reinforced with many talented musicians for this Easter, I our singing of Haydn felt glorious and inspiring. I have never felt so in harmony with a group of people through music. It was a packed service, for our church, but nothing in outreach compared to the Hollywood Bowl or a CD. Thus, I deeply regretted inviting my friends to get up before dawn to see me in the Hollywood Bowl service rather than inviting them to see our much more impressive performance at a much more reasonable hour.

Meanwhile, I will continue my humble teaching career and pray that does not bring me any fame, since usually teachers only become famous through bad media coverage.