May 2007 Archives

Ok, so maybe I was a bit over-the-top. First there was breakfast at Waid’s. For someone who had only been awake fifteen minutes, he put away an impressive amount of food (his mouth is full). Then, there was dinner at Guadalajara’s next door, where we all put away an impressive – and delicious – amount of food. (Nothing wrong with staying in the neighborhood!) Dad arrived “strategerally” in time for dessert.

In between I was treated to my first heart-stopping, breathtaking experience of teenage driving: oh, is that a red light? “What’s hydroplaning?” “How do you turn on the wipers?”

We cruised out to Game Stop for birthday gift selection. Score! :-) Then decided to take in Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At the World’s End. Our opinion doesn’t vary from the mass of reviewers: great special effects and a mashup of fifteen or so storylines with no coherent narrative. (Hmmm, just like real life?!) My favorite scene is the return from Davey Jones’ Locker: where up is down and down is up.

Most of our time was spent in conversation, and the evening ended with a few bouts of gut-splitting laughter. The jokes won’t translate into text, but there were my multiple trips to bathroom, flying pig intestines, and dad’s three layers at the office where all his co-workers are in short sleeves.

Hunter left the parachute guy for Alec; flowers were placed by Christi’s family. The Mount Moriah Cemetary was popular this Memorial Day.

We began the day’s adventures at the Weston Bend State Park, looking down over the very muddy Missouri River.

Lewis and Clark traveled this route, although they probably did not hike up to our vantage point.

Half the stores in town were closed, but the half that were open were plenty. We met Don Browning of The Weston Art House, where a reproduction of a 1937 painting by Georges Rochegroose promoting Don Quixote tickled us with its synchronicity (I had just told the story of being Kidnapped by Kiwis over breakfast that morning). I was also seriously attracted to the reproduction of Johannes Vermeer's The Astronomer. On the drive I had been contemplating the kind of art I’d like to have in my own home (somefineday). I’ve always been drawn to geometric shapes, certain types of machinery and scientific equipment, especially measuring tools, as well as ancient time-telling devices and images. Some images from The Scientists (which I’ve gotten back to reading) were in mind, and I was imagining some merger of those interests. The globe in this painting is extraordinary. :-)

We ate monster sandwiches and snarfed root beer floats (with homemade root beer!) in the Main Street Galleria, where I noticed this metal box:

If I had that home already…! Meanwhile Shirley (of “wild and wooley” TR3 and 66 Mustang fame, pictured with dad and Rich in front of someone else’s TR4) stole dad’s pickle, “I still have my gallbladder!” In retrospect, that comment set us up for Fort Leavenworth. Yep. No trip near Kansas could possibly be complete without a visit to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks and United States Penitentiary. The army required us to turn over our driver's licenses, which were recorded, and searched the car (all doors open, trunk open, hood lifted) before allowing us to enter. No pictures were allowed at the entrance gate although I was told we could take pictures of anything once we were inside.

We cruised in past the sign announcing Force Base Condition: Alpha. Rich asks, “Does that mean that they know we’re here?” (Answer? No, not yet.) I was curious about the Buffalo Soldier Monument but we were on a mission to find an old military cemetery. We only drifted down a few officer’s driveways before finding the correct backroad.

Markers for the executed German POWS are along the back fence. Some stones lack birth others display only the name. The cemetery was lined with majestic Dutch Pine, and Shirley collected some pinecones that “look like dog business.”

We looped past the Federal Penitentiary on our way out of town. The fame of decades of movies involving the prison itself, or references about “being sent to Leavenworth,” give the imposing structure an ominous aura.

I snapped pictures on our approach, and Rich commented that they used to let you drive up to the front but not anymore. As we approached the arched driveway in the bright late afternoon sun however, we saw cars parked along the gorgeous (weedless!) lawn. Dad pulled in and Rich and I got out to walk to the front for a closer shot of the entrance.

We’d covered 100 yards or so, chatting about a good angle for the picture when a screaming alarm went off. A few seconds later a white pickup truck hove into view around a monument, popped the curb, and started driving directly at us!

I was wondering what the heck was going on that the driver had to save the three additional seconds it would have taken to follow the road around the corner. I mean, the birds were chirping, no one else was around, it truly appeared as if nothing was happening, Then he lurched to a halt about ten feet in front of us, leapt out and started yelling that we were on government property and he was supposed to confiscate my camera. Holy Moly.

Rich (good boy that he is) immediately apologized but I (can you imagine?) started to argue, “The guy at the gate said I could take pictures of anything . . . ” ”What guy at the gate?!” The guard was near apoplectic. I let it go. Rich explained (to me) that we were no longer on the military base (when did we leave? I am still confused about this.) The guard chilled. I cannot imagine that we appeared actually threatening in any possible way. Shorts, casual pace, camera in full view, smiling. Yeah. Siblings On A Jailbreak. That would be me and my little brother.

Too bad I wasn’t quick enough to snap a pic or two as he charged us on the green. :-)

Imagine.

If I had rushed off yesterday not only would I have missed a great meal (including jalepeno bombers), but I would never have learned that Kay wants to pet a koala, Joyce is a "fast talker, slow driver," Kelly is still tortured by a question about Yo Yo Ma, and I taught Jeremy to drive a stick when he was seven. (He sat in the passenger seat manipulating the gear shift while I drove and managed the pedals.)

I could not have arrived early anyhow, and who would have wanted to? My silouetted appearance on dad's porch was taken as a) a hobo, b) a Sioux warrior, c) a dream. :-)

Final thought for the day:

My stance vis-a-vis the UMass Amherst administration's decision to grant an honorary degree to President Bush's ex-chief-of-staff, Andrew Card, was pre-established before the event was known. I was hired to interpret the graduate commencement ceremony at least a month before the decision about Card was announced.

I witnessed the swell of protest activity from a distance, observing. I did sign the petition, but my active participation was constrained by my paid role, by my work. Of course, I could have done many things, and probably could have "gotten away" with many things - but to do so would have compromised the deep commitment of professional interpreters to provide linguistic accessibility in the most impartial way possible.

Still - the challenge of how consumed some quality planning time between my teammate and me. We were fortunate to be aware of the scope of the planned protest and thus were able to strategize effectively. It so transpired, therefore, that my partner interpreted what she could make out of speech concerning Card, and I interpreted the protesters chanting. A satisfactory, ethical, and impartial arrangement. In fact, the protest was so loud and persistent that audience members watching the American Sign Language interpretation were probably the only ones to glean even a tiny bit of the content of the speech! An overcompensation, therefore, on behalf of professional duty.

Meanwhile, I must say that the moment of outburst was extraordinary. The "automatic" mode of interpreting everything I hear was well upon me, so the sound catapulted me into motion. I had to pause to assess what my teammate was doing (no need to duplicate)...when she shifted from the protest to the actual speech (physically walking over to the podium to be able to hear and - presumedly - read along with the speaker), I rose again to interpret the chants.

The discipline and coordination of the protestors was impressive. The administration reversed the order (as listed in the program book) of honorary degrees and everyone simply held their ground, waiting patiently and giving due respect to Tisato Kajiyama, a UMass alum and President of Kyusho University, Japan. As Provost Charlena Seymore began the announcement of the next degree, the silence in the Mullins Center was palpable. When she uttered Andrew Card's name the place erupted. Noise exploded throughout and people burst out of their chairs waving banners and signs.

The video by Traprock on YouTube captures the somber mood of the event and the displeasure of graduate students and faculty. News coverage includes a photo of the audience dotted with yellow protest signs. An online petition garnered 1721 signatures (as of today), in addition to hundreds of physical signatures from on campus. Much of the organizing for the protest was done by the Northampton Committee To Stop the War in Iraq, which reports that at least 125 newspapers carried the story, a local television story aired a news segment (search for "Andrew Card") which captures the visual moment of disruption and includes an interview clip from UMass Communication Department alumni Dr. Garnet Butchart, and also plugs the Traprock video.

There was no (new) blood on the carpet as a result of the Milan-Liverpool Champions Final yesterday. If anyone supported Liverpool wisely kept it quiet.

There really isn't any old blood on the carpet either, although Muffin remains disgruntled at MeiMei's presence and continues to expand the casualty list. :-/

Linus and I talked about the course I'm teaching online this summer, particularly the challenge of meeting people only through their minds - or, more precisely, only through how words show the mind-at-work. Jinglan showed off some bridges she has designed as greenways for Walden Pond (see the Executive Summary to understand the need and scope of this project). We mused on the metaphor of communication for these connectors that allow ecosystems to stay connected, and the metaphor of literal connectors (bridges, greenways) for the process of communication.

Using text is so tricky. I knew, for instance, that on two occasions recently I tried to present deadpan, not using my characteristic parenthetically enclosed exclamation point (!) or a smiley face :-) or even the quotations marks that would have denoted I was using my interlocutor's label: "stunningly handsome," "insensitive psychologist." How does this effect how I am read? Do those who know me catch the jest or wonder if I'm psychotic? Do those who do not know me consider this rhetorical slippage or an indicator of a personality on the edge? ;-)

Alas, just like words uttered into the vacuum of space, text sent hurling through cyberspace cannot be retrieved! Evidence can be erased, but the trace remains...

How hard can we play? :-/ And how shall I carry this lesson into this next round of teaching - online?

Ok, so the Summer Solstice is still twenty-nine days away. But I know where Isabel and Luis are going to be: at the Festival of the Sun!

I know I won’t make it to visit them in Ecuador this year, but you can bet Cuenca and this Incan temple is on my list of necessary world travels. :-)

Lava hosted a great party, as usual (although that grill was definitely functioning on Latin/African time…hmmm, maybe that was a function of the chefs?!). Lava had an extra special glow because of his near touch with Bono. I don’t know, perhaps he should not wash that finger anymore anyway? A mere inch of space is hardly enough to impede the energy vibes of such celebrity. Speaking of celebrities, Alex ensconced herself queen-like next to the remains of the kegger from Saturday’s bash (see more photos), and Zeynep appeared at the end of the evening to a round of warm hugs. There were many hugs, actually, except from that insensitive psychologist who makes sure not to talk with me long enough to provide blog material. ;-) People are leaving, alas. Some of them will not be back: thus we are cast among the winds of fortune and narrative!

Franz suggests people “fall into place” and we invent narratives that imbue this “falling” with meaning. Yep. Guilty! I choose my narrative. For instance, taking a nap pre-party and arriving just in time to snarf sausages without having to muscle through the masses allowed me to confirm my own intuitive sense of flow. “But everything flows,” Franz would argue. “Things could have worked out many different ways and each way would have had it’s own flow.” Yes. And. I make my story about how events do flow, how they have flowed, to bridge the gaps that might otherwise turn sour. I also love those who can take the potentially sour and make it funny: that spontaneous conversational revisionism about ecosexuality was hilarious!

We are not an average group, y’know? Not just because of the varied mix of nationalities and disciplines, but because of a common desire to connect, mingling our ways together so we can laugh at what we produce.

What kind of bridges can we forge? Which gaps can we fill?

A toast I say, to laughter!

There were five candles on my birthday cake. "What's this?" I wondered, "One for each decade?" :-) I decided that the candles symbolized five days of celebration. Truly, this has been one of the sweetest birthdays I recall. (Which is to choose NOT to go into detail about the cows I kept seeing with their tails in the air and certain good luck well wishes if you step in poop.)

We started last Wednesday: dinner with "cricket-playing Indians" and "soccer-playing Romanians." The dishes were palatable (no one got sick!) and the laughter delightful. The spirit of Sam in that salvaged margarita mix imbued us all with good cheer. (It probably didn't hurt that it is also the end of the semester.)

Thursday I felt as if my students were giving me presents, although I doubt the conceived of their final papers as anything other than basic academic obligation. Some days I wonder if the amount of gratification I receive from watching my students grow is disproportionate in comparison with all the things that make life meaningful, but the simple truth is that I am deeply pleased when they do well.

Friday was a surprise. :-) A planned camping trip was cancelled because of inclement weather, leaving me available for a spontaneous evening with a very special person. And Saturday was amazing. Just-in-Time and Very-Private-Person treated me to three-meals-in-one at the Dhaba Cafe in Boston. Food and talk, talk and food. I received phone calls, texts, emails, and thoughts throughout the day. Geez. I could hardly contain my sheepish pleasure while celebrating the Australian legacy for hours and hours Saturday night.

Sunday was sweet and mellow: a day without pressure. I could probably use a few more days like these, but then again, the contrast with the more usual, daily busy-ness of all I am called to do is part of what endows the slow days with such satisfaction.

Five days of stellar human company; you see how it gets to me?! I become more mushily sentimental all the time. :-) The confluence of all these interactions and encounters is the best gift of all: many of you did not even know it was my birthday. Proof-positive I am blessed with friends. (That, or just a damn good moocher.)

Emily-the-Strange's horrorscope changes daily, but note that the "Day of Dissonance" arrives soon!

"Are all Australians this gregarious?" Apoorva and I wondered at the amazing collection of people who gathered to send Alex and Dan toward the next phase of their life adventure. There were many more people at this party whom I had not met than those I had even seen once or twice. More than 200 well-wishers, "in only four years!"

The joys of these parties include seeing people I don't otherwise encounter, as well as meeting new folk. Inevitably I have intriguing conversations with people whose goodwill emanates like sunlight. Linus, for instance, who only has three ideas (!) for his dissertation in resource economics - seeking ways to entice governments and industries to reduce the environmental effects of capitalism. Franz (of FOOL ARE US co-ed soccer fame) has a penchant for the subtle (not!), which protects him from revealing too much about his own ambitions. :-) (He does seem interested in the modern/postmodern juncture but that might be a general, rather than specific knowledge.) Cecilia, from northeastern Brazil, whose work in comparative literature seems language-based (Portuguese and Spanish) yet opens fascinating questions about parallels and distinctions among former colonizing nations.

I found myself shy with Alenka because she asked if my students know that I sometimes blog them. (They do.) It wasn't the question itself, it was the knowledge of exposure, a bit of vulnerability. Later, the stunningly-handsome Bob and I had a stimulating discussion about the way I (try to) blog and whether and/or to what extent I need to protect individual's privacy from a civil liberties perspective. I do know this is a concern (some learned via the school of hard knocks), which is why I seek permission. The thing is, I'm not doing journalism, not reporting "on" or "about" others; instead what I'm doing is "reporting" (revealing) me. By implication, those who I interact with are "revealed" too, sortof - in the sense of learning what I think or feel about some aspects of our interaction.

The point (in my own warped mind, smile) is to get beyond the safe and comfortable to the deeper stuff that we as humans are challenged to resolve: hierarchy and its forms of power, oppression, violence, injustice. So, you get to see (if you wish) that blogging is a way of writing myself into being and inviting/seeking others of similar vision. Corny as it sounds, I hope my view on events and persons is received as a gift, a memento, a hook for continuing relationship.

Then, the question arises, who reads? I usually do not know. :-) What if I had regular readers? I don't know! What if I had regular commenters? Geez - there's a question! I had to let go of that desire and accept that this mode requires making myself vulnerable and allowing the exposure, in and of itself, to be what matters. In truth, I would love to know who reads and what they think, but the knowing generates new possibilities for relating, which both excites me and tweaks a bit of anxiety. What happens when we choose more intimacy, more connection?

I love Alex and Dan because not only are they totally wild and hilariously fun, they are also real, human, tuned-in, and conscious. These are the kind of people they attract, and I am just plumb-tickled to be included (even if Alex doesn't remember how she knows me!) (I was smuggled in by a Romanian, shhhh!)

Where else do conversations span such diversity of nationalities (including Cameroon, India, and Nepal among those already identified), academic disciplines, career interests, travel plans (go Nicole go!), relational successes and dating traumas (at least someone got an ironing board), and religious diversity with such good humor?

The boundaries of my knowledge were stretched on two particular counts. First, I intuitively grasped an extension of whiteness (inherited privilege via colonial genealogical heritage) as a tangible (possible) feature of what I've been taught as an American to view as "Latin", i.e., as other. The second is the embarrassing linguistic fact of struggling to hear terms and labels, names, in languages other than English. I received a generous behind-the-scenes email to get Dawoodi Bohra spelled correctly. I'm such a naive and un-educated american! I wondered if they were related to Sufiism? Not really - only distantly via the common root of Islam. (I attended a sema last summer in Istanbul.)

Meanwhile.

sigh

Dan and Alex will move, transplanting roots of a legacy that will grow and strengthen their new community. It remains to us to nurture the vibrant seeds they sown here.

Thus Julius Lester concluded his speech at Wednesday’s second annual Celebration of Writing ceremony, A Journey in Words, honoring outstanding work from students in the UMass Writing Program. I thought of my students and their experience in “Section 71” this semester. I am not sure if I unnerved them (?) with my responses to their third self-reflection letters of the term but it did seem as if they were desperate to escape our last day of class. Had I worked them too hard? Expected too much? Do the stories they tell of College Writing reflect the trust and faith I have in them as human beings?

After my first batch of final conferences I am relieved, although some students may yet imagine that there could have been an easier way to achieve their success. I am incredibly proud of the final reflection letters I have read to date; each student has written in moving terms about their growth and shows maturity through the choice and development of their unique theme. Professor Lester provided me with a simpler framework to ask the question I wanted the students to answer in these cumulative and summary reflections on what they have achieved as writers over the semester: What is the story you now have to tell about yourself as a writer?

I appreciated so many parts of Professor Lester’s address about the “unique power of story” as a metaphor for living. My awareness of the story I invite my students into through asking them to learn publicly by doing most of their homework on an online software platform has deepened considerably. First and foremost, I learn from them. The power of position that I use as a teacher is to create the conditions under which I learn best. I have understood this about myself for a long time, but had not fully grasped the way in which my ambition to continue growing structures the learning process for my students as a mirror to mine. This revelation occurred in conversation with my students a few weeks ago when they were (once again!) critiquing my take on the standard curriculum.

The results of this pedagogy are more apparent this semester than they have been in the past. I hope this is because I am actually improving the ways in which I set and explain expectations and guidelines. Notes I’ve made to myself over the past few weeks will guide me as I revise the experiment for next semester’s new group of incoming freshfolk. I will enjoy the summer prior (!), but am already eager to get on with applying this term’s lessons. I am grateful to my current students for their efforts – the mix of challenge and compliment combine to enhance my life-story: “a narrative in which we see ourselves and our experience….[my story of teaching tells] something of myself… who we are and/or a vision of who we would like to be.”

Professor Lester got it right: “We make-up stories about individuals based on appearance [skin color, gender, sexual orientation, etc] and nations make up stories about peoples.” I invite and encourage my students to make up their own stories, to bind themselves in connection through (the small) shared experience of this class, and to create and affirm – together – ways to overcome adversity.

Selfishly, I want to come along for the ride. :-)

"Plans are now beginning laid out to increase project collaborations, where appropriate, between the ICDP and the IODP."

Details are at the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program. Note:

"The evaluation of the relative importance of anthropogenic versus natural forces in controlling climatic and environmental change."

Just remember:

"I don't know what I think until I write it." ~ Sonia reporting on a discourse analysis of international development workers.

Gregory Bateson had much to do with the term, metacommunication. (I will assume no insult against sign language is intended in this brief definition).

Too dense for my students (at least for use in the next few days), A Meta-Communication Model for Structuring Intercultural Communication Action Patterns looks like something to review for the next phase of wiki-instruction. This one, though, is intriguing if only for its abstract on "phantom intelligence transmitted by the writer to the reader" (Four Problems Relating To Awareness of Metacommunication in Business Correspondence). I had some Metacommunication in Rough and Tumble Play with the Magazine Teama today. Partly because of time management issues and partly because of a reluctance to take up their own authority. (We are going to have a way cool mag, though - everyone will be proud!)

I'll have to study up on ethology before I can understand The Development of Social Interaction, Play, and Metacommunication in Mammals: An Ethological Perspective. A simpler definition is found at wikipedia. The challenge for my students is to imagine (and write about) metacommunication in their own - and each other's - writings.

I picked up a few books at my former landlord's yard sale today, including The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. The title captured my mood, and I know of Milan Kundera, even though I have not read him before.

Perhaps the title captured me because of its resonance with a potential title running through my head the past few days, The Summer of Hate and Love. I do not desire to call such a thing into being, but all the predictive indicators do seem to be in place. :-/

Kundera wastes no time, opening with "all that remains" (p. 3) are memories that have become "implausible, a caricature" (p. 5). "Ultimately," Kundera writes, reciting a list of world events, "everyone lets everything be forgotten" (p. 7).

"I invent stories," says Kundera, "confront one with another, and by this means I ask questions."

I am not so invested in inventing stories; those that occur in the linear living of my picayune life are complicated enough (a nod to my Saturday morning breakfast buddy). It seems to me that putting our own stories (the ones we live) into direct interaction with each other - possibly even interrogating each other? - is a means of approaching conscious evolution. I suppose this is why I study small group (interpersonal/intercultural) communication: how is it that we do make meaning with each other?

Should instructors inflate student grades because students did not enjoy class as much as they wish?

Or, should instructors give students easy A's, because we all know that learning is hard work and - come on - we're all smart enough already, aren't we?

My current students think that apology points might be warranted. After all, despite what they admit they learned (!), they still think I could have been easier in terms of grading, and possibly even more lax with my expectations (not to mention I should never have shown such a boring movie in class!) What do you think?

:-)