The Inundation of the Spring

THE INUNDATION of the Spring
Submerges every soul,
It sweeps the tenement away
But leaves the water whole.
In which the Soul, at first alarmed,
Seeks furtive for its shore,
But acclimated, gropes no more
For that Peninsular.
---Emily Dickinson

I might not really understand that poem, but yesterday was truly an inundated spring day. After working for almost eight hours scanning teacher/course evaluation forms, I really needed some exercise. Luckily I'm a member of the Coolest Ward Ever, and we had a hike planned to the Wind Caves up Logan Canyon just that very evening. So we went!

Now, if you're from around here at all, something might click into place at this point and you might ask, "But Beckie, how could you go hiking last night? Didn't it...rain last night?" To which I might reply, "Yes. But when has a little rain stopped a single's ward?" To which you might reply, "Dumb." But only if your name was Heidi Lamb.

Of all my roommates only Jenny came, the rest opting to stay clean and home. Yes, it was a little cloudy when we left, but hiking's always better when it's overcast. And the ward...well, it's only the first week of summer, but already this is looking to be my favorite summer ward EVER. So many people showed up, even with the threatening weather!

Anyway, so we carpooled up there and set off. I only brought a thin hoodie jacket, which I removed halfway up because the pace was brisk and it was quite warm. Then I put it back on at the top because the wind was brisk and the rain was quite cold. Within a space of three minutes it went from cool and clear to complete cloud surrounding us and hard, pelting rain.

The Wind Cave, by the way, was beautiful, though more likely formed from the receeding waters of Lake Bountiful than from wind itself, but hey, that's just what the sign said. It also told us to bring water bottles and wear sunscreen, and who ever liked that song anyway?

So we headed back down in the pouring rain. Jenny decided the mud made a "squooshing" sound. I asked her if squooshing was spelled with two 'o's or with one 'o' with an umlaut. Then we somehow started talking about zeugmas ("he ran track and for president") and sharing gross-out stories of dead and/or castrated animals - stories which I shall refrain from repeating here, or ever. It kept raining. We got wetter.

Well, you'll be happy to know I never slipped, nor did I see anyone else fall. We all made it down safely, although soaked to the bone from bukkits of rain. The weirdest was comparing the backs of our pant legs. Everyone was muddy but for some reason....mine were completely filthy. Soaking wet, and totally caked in dirt. It was awesome!

Bad news: for some dumb reason, I took my phone. One of the warning signs that you're overly cell phone dependent? Bringing it with you on a hike. You don't even get reception up there! But I had it, in my pocket the whole time. It, too, was wet, very wet. So if you know me and you're reading this and you haven't been able to reach me in some time...know that my phone is currently turned off and drying in a bag of rice. (My friend Lucas told me that's how to dry it out even faster...) I'll let you know if it works! If you don't hear from me in a few days, it probably didn't.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Music is my boyfriend
Music is my girlfriend
Music is my dead end
Music is my imaginary friend

You've probably heard that song. (Thanks, iPod commercials!) Except this time it's true. Music keeps you company when you need it. As Jimmy says, "I'm not alone 'cause the TV's on, yeah." When you're walking with your headphones, you're not walking by yourself. When you're sitting in your room, your speakers sit beside you. When you're driving, the radio's driving with you.

Music is my brother
Music is my great-grand-daughter
Music is my sister
Music is my favorite mistress

It says what I want to say when I can't say it. It reminds me of good times and it makes new times. I listen to it in my head even when my ears hear nothing.

Music is my beach house
Music is my hometown
Music is my king-sized bed
Music is where I meet with my friends

All that being said...let us not forget what Elder Russel M Nelson said on Sunday about the "power and protection provided by worthy music." Music has the power to facilitate spiritual nourishment, it has healing power, it can overcome language barriers.

And "Overindulging in loud music can make you spiritually deaf."

And "Don't degrade yourself. Listen to music worthy of you."

And "That which does not edify is not of God."

And

"Delete the rubbish from your minds and your iPods."

Ben Folds His Paper Hot-Dog Style

So, here's the story. My roommate Heather had been planning for at least a month to go see Ben Folds in concert down in Salt Lake, and I was jealous. I love Ben Folds...he and I go way back. But I didn't know if my love was worth $22-40.

That is, until one of Heather's Salt Lake friends backed out on Monday, two days before the concert, and Heather asked me first if I wanted it. Gasp! But I also had a "portfolio conference" to be at that night, so I told her to ask other people first so I wouldn't have to make the decision ;). Unfortunately, none of the other people on her list could go either so...I decided, what the heck, I'll go too! And I got way excited.

Until the next day, when Heather texted me that her friend had been misinformed- they really didn't have an extra ticket. Well, you know, these things happen, and I understood, and now I didn't have to worry about getting in touch with my professor either. So I was fine.

Until the next day, when Thomas called me. I was just putting the finishing touches on my portfolio, minding my own business, while he'd been listening to the radio and calling it up... and WINNING TWO FREE TICKETS TO THE BEN FOLDS CONCERT! Lucky for me that I'm his favorite sibling! And lucky for me that I already had a ride! And lucky for me that I emailed my teacher to let her know we could meet up another day! It seemed things were finally looking up for ol' Beckie.

And then a lot of other stuff happened on the ride down and the ride back up, involving ten chicken nuggets, Montevideo Uruguay, a box of Krispy Kremes, and getting home at 2 AM in the rain. But what I really wanted to blog are these:

There they are! Ben, his drummer, and his guitarist.

And the following are "Movies" but let's just call them "Pictures" because the sound on them is...well, it isn't.


"Landed"




"Annie Waits"



"Still Fighting It"



"Lullabye"

So, the sound quality's pretty incredible - I mean, they were taken on cell phones! - but I'd definitely recommend the actual music. Ch-ch-check it out.

And the best part of it all was getting to go see an extremely talented performer and sing along with Thomas. Thanks, buddy! It was especially worth it because it was free!!

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.  Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel.  None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch.  And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones.  And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

"I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget."
"I'm sorry, Dory, but I . . . do."
--Finding Nemo

HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me,	5
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you're lagging,
I may remember him!

--Emily Dickinson

"I'm ready to get hurt again."
---Michael Scott, "The Office"

YOU left me, sweet, two legacies,—
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;
You left me boundaries of pain	5
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

--Emily Dickinson

"It"

Sorry, Heather, you've tagged a slacker. It's been like a month since you told me I'm supposed to write 8 things about myself here and I'm just now getting around to it. I probably won't even pass it on after this. Fun game!

Oh, who am I kidding...I love to talk about myself (who doesn't!?) and this is a great excuse. Right then: If you really knew me you would know...

1. I'm very gullible. Though I'll pretend to talk back to you just to find loopholes in your own argument, I actually believe almost everything I hear. Ask my family if I once thought that Michael Crawford was dead. (I'm not entirely sure I even knew who that was at that time!) This especially applies to - yes, I'm about to reveal this - INFOMERCIALS. They just...work on me. All their little ploys and selling tactics sound so agreeable, then desirable, then necessary. My thoughts:

"What?? They're throwing in three quality cookbooks with the QuickChop?!"

"Wait...there's more: If I call within the next ten minutes, I can get TWO Amazing Rotisserie Chicken Grills for the price of one! It's a great gift idea!"

Usually after the program ends, I'm fine and the marketing scheme ceases its gruesome power over me. Though I have convinced my mom to buy me several amazing gadgets As Seen On TV. Our Magic Bullet Blender and FoodSavers are both safely broken on the storage shelf in our basement.

2. Bandwagons: I jump on them. Well, ok, at the beginning. Once they start to fill up, it gets really crowded and many times I'm shoved over to the side so I just jump off. There are a lot of things that sometimes I just like because they're popular - American Idol, In 'n' Out, Facebook...

Speaking of jumping, I also enjoy following various TV shows just until they "jump the shark."


3. I think movie spoofs are the greatest things ever.

4. Cats rule, dogs drool. Cats are much cuter, softer, cuddlier, and cleaner. Dogs...I enjoy like grandchildren: fun to play with, fine at other people's houses, but not for me to take home.

And I used to have an imaginary pet white Siberian tiger.

5. I want to change the world. No, seriously, I do! (I'm a closet idealist.) I want to teach kids to love writing, I want to read books to them that make them as excited as I was when I read them the first time, I want to get them as into history as Mr Felt did for us in 10th and 12th grade. Good teachers are heroes and heroines! What you learn in school can affect you for the rest of your life! Children are the future!!

6. I have a high tolerance for repetition. Conversation-wise, sometimes it's even necessary; to get me to really understand something, I may need to hear you say it over and over and over. I can re-watch movies - good ones, anyway - endlessly, and it's like starting with a blank slate. I love to go back and re-read my favorite books. Even in music: I can handle those almost-annoying techno or dream-mo songs that get like 4 minutes in and haven't started yet, or live jam-sessions that seem to go over the same part again and again. New things are great, but I can handle repetitiveness. (Guess it's a good thing Ima be a teacher then, eh?)

7. I love correcting others' grammar, but not necessarily speaking correctly myself. It's way fun being the annoying Simpson's "Linguo" robot, while at the same time purporting the idea that language changes, evolves, and never has one true, "right" answer. Ha. The privileges of an English major!

8. I haven't thought that far ahead.

Ok... Now that it's come down to it, perhaps I do wish to send the tag along.... Alan, you're it.

Everyone else, get a blog already.

SCED: Where Brevity Dies and Education Languishes

"Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the fool their lack of understanding. " - Ambrose Bierce

The above: a trait readily applicable to and found in significant amounts in my university's Secondary Education program, in which I am currently enrolled. Also known as: A waste of time and good money. Sure, I know they mean well, and there really are many good teachers working hard for the preparation of us preservice teachers. But as a whole...the program itself is tedious, repetitive, and incredibly dull.

Take today for instance: carefully extracting myself from the comfort of my warm bed, hauling up to campus, entering the classroom...and our teacher, alas, is not there. Of course, that's not a big surprise, since in this course, our teacher is literally never there - it's a Distance Education class, which meets here in Logan but the professor lives and broadcasts from Vernal. What's also not a big surprise, though, is that she's not even broadcasting today. Even the TA doesn't know why, acts nonchalant, and informs us we are to present our "problem-solving activity ideas" for class today and then we're free to leave. We look at each other in disbelief but act it out anyway, "presenting" what we'd written in five minutes last class. (Incidentally, our last class was the previous Wednesday, since we've already been informed that class is permanently canceled every Friday for the rest of the semester.) There aren't that many ideas to present - only half the class even bothers to show up anymore... Because when we do have class, it's usually to listen to lectures about how lectures shouldn't be used in classrooms anymore, in favor of more active, group-oriented, hands-on activities. Not even the irony can keep me awake anymore!

Were this kind of situation restricted to one or two classes, I suppose it would be bearable. But, ever since I finished the English program to move over to the Education one, the quality of classes, professors, coursework, and education has decreased significantly. Instead of analyzing literature or creating and comparing essays, or studying history and interpreting facts, classroom discussions are little more than opinion-sharing, not unlike how I might envision a group counseling session. We're all a little long-winded and love the sound of our own voice. And it's not that I don't care about everyone's experiences.

It just seems we're so intent on talking about education that we don't really get...educated.

It's been a long while since I really felt challenged in these classes. This doesn't mean that I'm overly smart; on the contrary, I feel like many other students are more prepared than I, which makes it that much more pathetic that we're not being pushed to our full potential. One of my teachers doesn't even give deadlines - she just lets us turn it in whenever we'd like, cancels class all the time, etc. Not that I mind her cancelling class - without fail, every time I'm there I ask myself why I even bothered to show up. So oppressively dull....

Yet in a way, it makes me want even more to become a teacher. Sometimes learning from bad examples motivates you all the more strongly.

Contrary to Popular Opinion...

...ESL does not simply mean English as a Second Language.

It also stands for Lynn Truss's classic book about the power of punctuation. I've heard this one before, but let's review for nostalgia's sake:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
So punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

I have, of course, my opinion about how far to the "grammar police" spectrum we should go, but she makes a valid point.

http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/esl.html

Ta,
Beckie