Poetry Power

I again stepped WAY beyond out of my comfort zone at school on friday.

One of the English teachers has been trying to introduce the school to SLAM poetry, or Spoken-Word poetry. She has a local poet that has been coming in, and invited some kids to share their own poetry. She wanted us as teachers to encourage more kids to perform, so after pushing the thing for a couple weeks, and after watching another TED talk, I asked if I could perform. And I did. Friday we had an assembly with some professional poets doing their stuff. Luckily we (the kids, myself, and the teacher running the thing) went first. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but I got a lot of good feedback from the teachers, and some of the kids too. One even said I inspired him! The professionals that came out were really moving. One was a graduate of LADE who has gone on to win in national poetry competitions, and has performed on HBO. Hakim Bellamy and Carlos Contreras are part of Urban Verbs. During a conversation after the show, I still felt small in comparison (literally and poetically) but I responded to something Hakim said by quoting a line from one of the poems he had performed. It was amazing to see how that affected him. He, as a poet, tries to affect people. To move them. To connect through words soul to soul, and I guess that validated him. Proved that his work was working.

As for me, is this the last time I perform my poetry? Who knows. I don't anticipate being the next Taylor Mali, but I'll probably do more here at the school. For you, though, is the poem I performed below. It's there as I wrote it, not as it came out, because nerves will have their way with you, no matter what you do.

I am a performer.

It’s “A Nite at the Improv.”

Six shows a day, five days a week. Thank you! Thank you!

Thank you very much! I’ll be here all year!

Any tips are greatly appreciated;

Please pass the hat.

I am a performer.

Playing an actor in my own life

Following the script I have written

Hoping to be the person I said I have been.

But playing myself to be younger than I am

When I start to feel old,

And pretending to be very old

When I’m looking for respect,

Hoping that you don’t put 2 and 2 together

And find out that 2 is how long I’ve been a teacher.

I am a performer.

I play everything’s cool, even if it’s not

And I get all riled up if you don’t talk

Cause I want to hear your thought.

I see something beyond that blank stare

Tempting you to speak your mind,

And I will not let you stay silent!

Because “IDK” is not the answer to a questions

But the beginning of a journey.

I am a performer.

I am a street corner preacher

Crying “Repent! Repent!”

For the end is near,

But finals are nearer.

And tik tik tock says the clock.

Time is passing, are you?

I am a performer.

But here I am.

Heart on my sleeve.

Telling you to look at me. Know me.

This is who I am.

But, in your mind,

 You will see me standing here,

And you will remember, that

I am a performer.

Podcasting power

I watch a lot of TED talks. I'll have to post on that another time. I also started listening to economics podcast so that I would get ideas for teaching my econ class. I shared one with my class once. And they really liked it, so, I'm like "Self, great day!" (to quote my favorite economics professor). But it's in a format that is hard to do in a classroom, so I wanted to make it work somehow. So, I thought about TED. TED is video, and has subtitles (the kids have a hard time with British accents), so I've shared a couple videos and had some success. But I still wanted to work in some of the audio podcasts, especially since the kids wanted me to. So again, I turned to TED. There was a talk on Changing Education Paradigms, and the cool thing was that instead of a fancy powerpoint, there was live illustration visualizing the things he talked about. It was a living storyboard for his talk. That gave me an idea.

I have a SmartBoard. So, I thought that I would live-illustrate a podcast. I proposed this to the kids, and asked if they thought it was a good idea. It was the last week of school for my seniors, so they didn't care. They thought anything was a great idea. So I did it. A little ways into it stopped and asked if it was working, and they said it was. I also admitted to them that this was WAY beyond being out of my comfort zone, but that I was doing it for them. I mean, it was NOT anything spectacular, but it wasn't distracting. So they either just listened, or they listened and watched.

So, here are the screen shots of my live-illustrated podcast, which you can listen to here.

Reverie

Reverie can be defined as: A state of being pleasantly lost in one's thoughts; a daydream; a dreamy or musing state; absentminded dreaming while awake; an abstracted state of absorption.

Do you ever experience something that just stops you dead in your tracks? There is a song, that does it to me. Gabriel's Oboe from The Mission. I find it practically impossible to do anything while it's playing. I am overcome in reverie.

It happens to me often enough with music, but sometimes it hits me when reading a student's paper. I see some image of their future, and the stack drops into my lap, and I just think. Reverie to me is reminiscence of the future. Like starting a story "Once upon a time...in the future."

It also overcomes me with the smell of tree blossoms. It's subtle, unnoticeable, then you catch it and it's the only thing you can smell. Lilacs at night. You're caught up in everything, then you stop. Then your mind flashes through its register, and then there's that moment of recognition. Lilacs. And you have to stop. You have to close your eyes so that the only thing in the universe for one second is the smell of lilacs. Or the song of an oboe. Or a sliver of a moon, so faint its hardly there.

Sometimes there are moments that are so romantic, that you cannot help but be overcome. They are so perfect, so idyllic, so picturesque. But then there are the moments that are so unabashedly normal that when that little thing crosses your vision you are sweetly jerked out of your reality. A toddler's laugh, a sunset, shapes in the clouds. A whimsy, that if you don't give into it, it's gone. Sometimes you have to choose not to give in to the reverie. And there is a certain bittersweet sadness reserved for just that moment.

My duplicate

I was reading an article. You can read it, if you want to, but it's not important. The article had a picture, which you see, of my duplicate AKA my doppelgänger. You can see by the scene that you've got a high school teacher. You can see by the prominent placement of flags, the MLK picture, etc. that you're dealing with a high school social studies teacher. He has MC Escher and fractal prints and a calculator poster, so he probably teaches multiple subjects. He's using a projector and smart board, so he's somewhat tech-savvy. He also has longer, shaggy hair, glasses, and a beard kept short. He's wearing khakis and a blue button-down shirt, which I also was wearing when I saw the picture.


Creepy. But, Kamila says I'm better looking.

Amazing

PhotoRec - CGSecurity

OMG this totally just saved me! and it wasn't that hard to use! but a shout-out to my dad and brother who helped verse me in the ways of computing.

Vexillology

Cool title, right? It is the scholarly study of flags. Just thought I'd share that.

Living in Albuquerque is cool. We are experiencing the city newly every day, since we're still in our first year. There are four seasons here: luminarias, wind, monsoon, and balloons. Many people know about the Balloon Fiesta and that Albuquerque is the hot air balloon capital of the world, in fact, I mentioned it here before. Apparently there is some kind of rare atmospheric condition referred to as the Albuquerque Box which creates a circular pattern of air currents that is ideal for ballooning. But it's not just once a year that you see balloons. We have seen balloons in every month but December and January. It is a simple joy, but it starts your day off right to see them flying along nearly every morning.

Not all is blissful, but sometimes the city is a little bizarre. This is the notorious pre-tax day weekend and I'm sure that you will see the people dancing on the corners in their statue of liberty costumes. In the brief time we were out and about on Saturday we saw a guy with gauges big enough to fit your hand through, a guy who looked like Jerry Garcia, and another guy who kept whacking a little inflatable person with his arrow sign. All dressed up like Lady Liberty. I'm glad I do my taxes at home!

If you are not new to my blog, then you will see a new addition. There is an "I'm a mormon" button. I have a confession: I am a mormon. I mentioned before how I had started a personal profile on mormon.org. I didn't actually finish doing that, but previous to this month's General Conference I was seriously considering it. What finally inspired me to finish was seeing a friend's blog. I followed the link from his mormon button to his personal profile, and remembered some really good times from BYU and sharing faith among almost everyone who surrounded me. Eventually the button will lead to my profile, but each of them has to be approved (thank goodness!). They probably are backed up from in increased traffic after Conference.

I was able to share my faith today also. I was subbing in the Gospel Doctrine class again, and the lesson was "Who is my Neighbour?". I started the class with having everyone stand and greet one another like in Catholic Mass and the exchanging of the kiss of peace. During my preparations I came across Mark 9:83-41 and thought that it would be appropriate to share. A big part of being a neighbor is reaching out to others of the Christian faith. We all believe in Christ, and though I made sure to emphasize my testimony of the Church and the Restoration, I think we need to take a step toward opening our minds and our hearts to those that share in a majority of what we believe. I almost didn't mention the scripture in the lesson since it didn't exactly fit, and we were short on time. But I did, and little did I know there was a Methodist man visiting with a friend sitting in the front row, and he mentioned to me afterward how welcoming it was to feel that. I really love being able to teach, and all the little old ladies make sure to grab me and thank me for the lesson. They also ask me if I'm Canadian, since I spelled neighbor with a '-our' on the board, and to mention that I remind them of the tailor from Fiddler on the Roof.

Pay Teachers More - NYTimes.com

Pay Teachers More - NYTimes.com