Letter! To the Editor!

The Deseret News yesterday published a story on the front page about Senator Allen Christensen's (R-Ogden) bill to require every Utah public school classroom to display the American flag and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. I thought this was an entirely ineffective way to promote patriotism, Sen. Christensen's stated objective, so I wrote a letter to the editor. And the Deseret News published it.


Here is the article:

Law sought to require classroom flags
by Jennifer Toomer-Cook

The Pledge of Allegiance, flag etiquette classes, the "In God We Trust" motto, and now, the Stars and Stripes and the Declaration of Independence—state legislators want to make schools more outwardly patriotic places.

Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, is drafting a bill that would require the display of the American flag and a copy of the Declaration of Independence in every public school classroom in Utah.

"This started off because a friend of mind did a little bit of research on college campuses and he couldn't find anybody who could tell him what the Constitution was, let alone what was in it — and these were college students," Christensen said.

"There's not a lot of patriotism going around out there," he said, contrasting controversy over the war in Iraq with patriotism of World War II. "We need to pass some of this on to the younger generations, what a truly special and wonderful thing our Constitution is and what a fabulous country we live in. We can't require they say the Pledge of Allegiance anymore, but anything we can do to teach the younger generations to truly revere the flag and at least know something about the Constitution, I would love that."

The bill does not require the Constitution be displayed in classrooms, but Christensen said he might add that provision, and maybe the Bill of Rights, to the bill's requirements.
But some educators wonder if the bill will have the desired effect.

"I always assumed that the state required the American flag be in every classroom — I've never been in a classroom without an American flag," said Mike Leavitt, a history teacher at Riverton High School. "I don't necessarily believe (the bill's requirements) would raise the level of awareness for patriotism or for our Constitution."

Many schools have a "freedom shrine" of historically significant documents. State law requires elementary students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily, though parents can excuse children from the exercise. Secondary schools are encouraged to do so weekly; the Granite Board of Education, for one, requires as much.

State law also requires schools to post the national motto, "In God We Trust." Several school districts received donations to buy framed depictions of the phrase; Christensen believes a similar outpouring would follow his bill.

The state core curriculum also includes flag education for elementary students and U.S. history and civics for older children.

Crestview Elementary principal Verneita Hunt says those lessons are taught.

"You can't make kids more patriotic," said Hunt, whose students have sent valentines to service men and women in Iraq in past years.

"You can show them, teach them, help them understand our country, and then because of the love of their country ... they will become more patriotic because they choose to be, because they understand the freedoms our Constitution gives us."

In the aftermath of the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, several schools showed outward signs of patriotism, including singing patriotic songs, writing notes to the troops, offering service.

Schools still do that sort of thing. But they've been downplayed as schools focus on the three R's and do-or-die tests. And it's true, today's students are not like those in the 1940s.

"How do you change society?" Hunt said.

"It's been a long time since we've had a world war ... since our nation has truly come together and sacrificed hard," she said. "We get a little spoiled in our life — and sometimes it's our own freedoms, freedom of speech, of being able to do things we do ... and we forget truly what that freedom has given us."

Leavitt says students learn better when they can relate the Constitution to their lives now, rather than to words on a hanging document or in a textbook.

Riverton High students turned civics lessons into practice last month when they lobbied legislators and the Jordan Board of Education to observe Veterans Day, a state and federal holiday, with time off from school. Students came up with the idea from their own experience with family members and loved ones who have served or are serving in the military, and they wanted a day to spend time with and honor them.

"When kids see civics in action, that's the best way to learn," Leavitt said. "That's kind of what we're teaching as educators, is rigor and relevance, something where the kids think this is going to apply to them, pertain to them, in the future. That's the best way to do it."

And here is my response:

As a 20-year-old college student, I was taken aback by Sen. Allen Christensen's claim that his friend "couldn't find" college students with knowledge of the Constitution, but even more so by his lack of confidence in my generation.

It cannot be assumed, as Sen. Christensen has done, that we do not love our country. I have experienced public education much more recently than Sen. Christensen. I did learn patriotism from my public schools — not from mechanically reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, rather from teachers who taught well and challenged me.

I do not believe this proposed bill can foster better citizens. Measures to improve the quality of teaching and learning, however, could.

Merry Christmas

Christmas 1997: I was ten years old, and listed every single gift I got that year in my journal. Here is (most of) that entry, complete with original spelling. I hope you enjoy it.

Dec. 25 '97

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was maby the best Christmas I have ever had, I say that every year. The whole family got a fuse ball table. I also got all my gifts: TWO mini Doddle Bears, a "Tote 'n teddy," a bear in a plastic shiny bag, Addy's Christmas (not from Pleasant Company, but same fabric and everything else [almost]), My Christmas PJ's were Addy's nightgown, a tambrine for dance (it is so pritty!), four spools of ribbon that I used to tie on the tambrine, a pair of shoes for Addy, a calgrife set, a box of crayons, Addy's Ice Cream Frezzer a 20$ gift certificate for Gap, an American Girl CDrom for makeing plays, I pair of darling piggie slippers ... stocking: a magnet wheel toy, stickers, a grow dino, tornato tube, two sets trading cards, and a paint pen, mormen adds. Two things that were not in my stocking, but that I forgot: a bractlet bead loom, and a years subscription two the magazine "Cricket." At 3:00 we went to Tanya's and Nancy's house. We all played on the moon shoes she got, even mom and dad! Tanya's big present was a geco .... What I got every body: Dad: three dark green bathtowls and three dark green wash cloths. Mom: a Christmas tape. Emmy, shower gell, a little soft plastic shower ball to rub gell on, and roll-on lip gloss.

Melancholy Songs for Christmas

Last Wednesday, with three more days until I could go home for Christmas, I listened to "I'll Be Home for Christmas" over and over on Hype Machine--by Frank Sinatra, by Mindy Smith, by Bing Crosby (my favorite is Banu Gibson and the New Orleans Hot Jazz). "I'll be home for Christmas...if only in my dreams." Lines like that are more poignant than singing about bells and Rudolph. And they are more real. Melancholy Christmas songs are wonderful, I have decided. Here are some I've been listening to.

John Lennon: Happy Christmas (War is Over)

"So this is Christmas--and what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun..."
I panicked just a little when I heard this over the radio: wait, what have I done? But then I stopped and thought about it, and I am satisfied with the past year. Some of the I did...

got a penny whistle started a blog made new friends

ate melon for the first time saw the Eiffel Tower sculpted

road-tripped to Nebraska roasted two turkeys wrote a research

paper listened to music silk-screened died my hair

Diana Krall: Departure Bay

The house was bare of Christmas lights

It came down hard that year

Outside in our overcoats

Drinking down to the bitter end

Trying to make things right

Like my mother did.

I'm Dreaming of Home

I watched the movie Joyeux Noël last night, about the Christmas Truce between German and British forces--about how they came out of the trenches and sang; exchanged drinks, chocolate, cigarettes; buried the dead. A story about a miracle.

Scottish forces are depicted in the film, crouched in their trench around a meal. Someone has bagpipes, and someone asks to hear "I'm Dreaming of Home." They start singing:

This is no foreign sky

I see no foreign light

But far away am I

In some peaceful land, I'm longing to stand...

I'm dreaming of home, I feel so alone

I'm dreaming of home.

A plea to the international community...

...to help Bush find bombs to decry that actually exist.

It turns out the Iranians aren't plotting to blow us up after all. News recently broke that according to the National Intelligence Estimate (I don't know what that is, but it sounds very official), Iran halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003. HALTED ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM IN 2003. This week's Time (headline: "Now They Tell Us?") neatly timelined-out quotes from Bush and others about Iran's aggression towards the US...their serious pursuit of nuclear weapons...WWIII....

To be fair, NIE estimate is "moderately sure." Or "mostly positive." Or "Yeah, I think so." Something like that. What is that on our color-coded terrorist scale? Violet?

All this sounds somewhat familiar--namely one of Bush's big reasons for going to Iraq, that is, his claim that they had weapons of mass destruction. His claim despite the lack of evidence from UN weapons inspections and Hans Blix (who, according to the picture in my mind, is an avid skier and is fond of wearing scarves).

So here I offer my solution to these befuddling unfindable-weapon situations. I here officially launch the Bombs for Bush campaign: A plea to the international community to help Bush find bombs to decry that actually exist.

The bomb part of the image comes from http://www.303rdbg.com/bombs1.jpg.

Sometimes I am uncomfortable with my major

I was walking back to my apartment today, past the dorms that are being torn down. The project fascinates me, and I stopped to take some pictures. The sun was out--that beautiful, evening sun--and as I took my pictures the workers were packing up and going home. Some Latinos were duct taping a salvaged desk or bookshelf on top of a car--with the sound of the tape ripping off the roll.

They were chattering in Spanish. That's my major, I thought. I am studying your language. I do it in a university classroom, where una güera simpática who speaks with the zeta teaches us how to stage seventeenth-century plays. I study their language, I thought. And it has nothing to do with them.

Enough Curmudgeon-ing

I am quite cheerful about it being the Christmas season. I needed a new post to tell about this, though I don't have anything specific to say. I spent pretty much the whole day singing or listening to Christmas songs. There is one song I didn't hear or sing today, though, so I will post that as a representation of Christmas spirit.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Drones

About BYU students: They view the Honor Code as empowering, because it allows them to focus on their studies and wholesome recreation without distraction.

This is from a caption on the welcome page of BYU's website. If that doesn't shout "we are drones!" I don't know what does. "Empowering" isn't a word I would use for the general sentiment of BYU students towards the Honor Code. I have no problem with following it. But empowering? Hmm.

Walk Out

I had an hour between classes the other day. I was in the math building, and went to a computer lab--that a friend had shown me a few weeks earlier--to check my email. I was at a computer towards the middle of the room, reading through some things, when a woman came in, uncapped a dry erase marker, and said, "okay, now where did we end off last week?" Hands started raising around me as this woman wrote complicated equations on the white board and as I looked around in amazement at my managing to be right in the middle of somebody's class. It was then that I noticed a sign on the door that clearly stated open access to the lab had ended five minutes previously. I logged out of the computer, told myself it wasn't really happening, and got up and walked out.

Cannon Center Dada

Yesterday in my French class, we talked about the Dadaists and their artistic movement after WWI. According to my professor, they were disenchanted generation of young people. The War wasn't as glorious as they had been promised, and when they got back, no one could understand what they had been through--or even conceive their war in the trenches when machine guns and tanks and gas had barely replaced horse and cannon warfare.

And thus began the Dada movement, with the goal of making nonsense. The world didn't make sense, reality was disconnected from language--therefore disconnect language from any reality, the Dadaists figured. It was a primal scream and a hatred of civilization when what they saw of "civilization" was rotten to the core.

But it's also that disconnect when someone just doesn't understand. When there is a gap that doesn't get crossed. Like I wrote in my notes: that frustration when you're trying to communicate something, and there is something dividing that communication. The other person hasn't had the same experiences as you, or they are too young, or too old, or you are afraid of hurting them my telling everything, or they don't understand the words you are using, or, or...

But that's not why I'm writing about Dada. During my freshman year, I was sitting in the cafeteria with some friends, and one of them brought up talking about it in on of her classes, and the other friend knew what she was talking about. I didn't have any idea what they were talking about, and didn't pay much attention--I was so distracted with my delight in the word. Dada. This delight elicited the beginning of a poem using all the phrases that I thought were lovely that we used in our conversation that night.

So yesterday in class, I was delighted [I think I've overused this word, but it is the only one that fits the way I want it to] when the professor said "dada," and even more so when I found out my Cannon Center version pretty much fits with the description (I think) because it is absolutely nonsense. But it sounds pretty. So maybe it doesn't count.

Cannon Center Dada

I have a strait-laced spoon on a Welch bed of grapes
The cult of Katie Couric and the dreaded Spanish drapes.
Chips on ice and an empty plate for dinner

Count or not, it needs additions, so feel free.

For Your Reconsideration

I got back to school Sunday after being home for the Thanksgiving break. I was rather melancholy Monday--components of which likely included being re-surrounded by 30,000 unfailingly smarter and more beautiful people, having my range of mobility once again reduced to the time I have to walk to my destination and back, and the fact that my statistics midterm didn't actually just go away while I was gone. All this brought upon a reconsideration of several things in my life--and then a list of other things that I think we should all reconsider:

1. Pedestrian Crossing Flags

Who thought of this in the first place, anyway? I think it is an idea that would appeal naturally to the eight-and-under crowd, but after that, you just look silly. I think we should figure out if they actually make it safer to cross the street, or if all they do is give you a few moments as an honorary member of the Utah Color Guard.

2. Tax Returns

Doesn't this system seem incredibly inefficient to anyone else? Granted, it is a huge country, and we have to manage taxes some way. But couldn't there be a more efficient ways? Perhaps starting with public education about taxes would help--learning a little less about Colonial America in high school history, and a little more about how to maneuver living in this country today.

3. The New Utah License Plates

I saw one out of the corner of my eye yesterday and thought it was an ad for Marlboro cigarettes. That's all.

Please feel free to add to the list.

Stop Motion

I'm thinking the video won't look so choppy if you view it here. CLICK!

Only Time (alt. title: The Worst Video Quality That Could Possibly Exist)

My friend Natalie and "Only Time" by Magnetic Fields

This looked a whole lot better in iMovie than it does here. But I spent such a ridiculous amount of time on it that I am posting it. It looks awful. Take it as visible evidence of my technological incompetence.

Things I overheard on campus today:

“…and I asked my roommate about that recipe, and he actually does cook it in the marinade for about two hours.”

“I just got done writing a 10 page paper in less than five hours.”

“I don’t remember your name, but I totally recognize you.”

“…once a year. Maybe twice.”

“He’s indifferent right now. But he’s not partying.”

“I’ve seen it with him more than with the family,”

Halloween on Campus: a deeper look

This being my twentieth Halloween, I feel qualified to discuss the classification that exists among Halloween costumes. These patterns have become evident to me through years of observations.

All Halloween attire falls into one of three broad categories:
Category A: Every-day attire uninfluenced by the observation of Halloween
Category B: Attire that clearly acknowledges Halloween but that cannot be classified as a costume
Category C: Halloween costumes

Category A: Every-day attire uninfluenced by the observation of Halloween
Generally of little note. Ambiguities, however, arise in several cases, which can be sorted into several classifications.

Ambiguity #1: Specialized attire
Example: an individual’s attire identifies him or her as a “professor” not because it is Halloween, but because that is the individual’s profession. Similar confusions arise with professions such as doctor or firefighter.

Ambiguity #2: Lifestyle
Potential confusion arises from such habits as skateboarding or excessive studying/fondness for pocket protectors.

Ambiguity #3: Personal preferences.
While individuals utilize social cues to signal they are wearing a costume, these signals are sometimes falsely triggered when what would be an extraordinary choice for one individual (appropriate for Halloween) is in fact an ordinary choice for another. Potential “false-trigger” attire include bright colors or patterns, retro-styled clothing, or unexpected use or fit of an article of clothing.

Category B: Attire that clearly acknowledges Halloween but that cannot be classified as a costume


Individuals in this category wish to acknowledge the event of Halloween, but perhaps are unwilling to invest themselves to the full extent seen in Category C [see below]. The manifestations that characterize Category B Halloween attire often include a limited number of the following elements:
-The presence of unordinary colors, particularly black and orange, and, to a lesser extent, purple and bright green
-Motifs that include cats (typically black), pumpkins and/or jack-o-lanterns, and the stereotypical witch
-Attire components and patterns that would typically be considered irregular, such as pointed shoes, headbands with antennae, and broad stripes
Category C: Halloween costumes
The costume, worn in traditional observance of Halloween, accounts for only a minority of attire choices. Though the minority, it is perhaps the most notable of our three categories.

Costumes are first sorted into two broad categories
C.1 Living Things
C.2 Inanimate Objects

These categories can be broken down further:
C.1.1 Generic
These costumes do not represent one specific person. They include the categories:
C.1.1.1 Generic Ordinary People



Includes professions and stereotypes.
Common manifestations: member of the army, nerd



C.1.1.2 Generic Extra-ordinary
Common manifestations: which, ghost

C.1.2 Characters from works of fiction and pop culture
C.1.2.1 Characters from works of science fiction

This major category accounts for a major proportion of Category C
Particularly notable manifestations: Characters from Star Wars, Harry Potter
C.1.2.2 Characters from other works of fiction
C.1.2.3 Characters from pop culture
Manifestations: Uncle Sam, Miss Mary Mack

C.1.3 Figures from real life
This category encompasses the emulation of actual figures
Manifestations: Marilyn Monroe, the current president

C.2 Inanimate Objects

A relatively unlimited category, including such varied possibilities as an iPod, the Rorschach inkblot test, a Lego, and “God’s gift to women” (for which the individual wears a gift-wrapped box with a tag that reads ‘To: Women From: God’)

Ha Ha

As of about three this afternoon, I no longer have wisdom teeth. A few reflections:

Nitrous Oxide: Ug. no euphoria, just a sense of things being distant and muted, and of feeling lethargic. I was telling this to my mom, who then told me nitrous oxide belonged to the “dissociative” class of drugs. Appropriate. It’s there along with ketamine. Wow, lots of fun. The whole experience only reinforced the whole “it’s hip to be drug free” mentality in my mind. I felt like I could still think pretty clearly during what I was awake for. I think. I really don’t like the idea of being separated from yourself. I wouldn’t want to ever intentionally mute how I think or, well, just my sense of being me.

One of my biggest fears about this whole thing was saying stupid things under anesthesia. When I woke up, I wanted to ask the nurse if I had said anything. I also wanted to ask how long I had been out. I went with the latter first. My mouth was numbed and stuffed full of gauze, so after a few moments of concentration of yes, I am thinking clearly, and then of a few silent practice runs of forming words with a mouth that wouldn’t move, I came out with, “Howlonaibo?”

“Yes, it went just fine, dear,” said the nurse kindly. She must go home with a lot of funny stories.

Church-Sponsored Activities

Sunday was a great big church meeting. I went with my roommates, and we found a parking spot on the top level of the small parking structure near where we were meeting. Everyone else found a parking spot in the small parking structure, too, and the top level is, of course, the last to get down to the bottom level.

We sat in the car, engine running. Sat and waited. It had snowed the night before, and I noticed hands coming out of another car, reaching up to get the snow off the top of the car, and…soon, there was a full-blown snowball fight in the parking garage.


Tonight was Family Home Evening, which, when we’re all single and somewhat family-less, means we meet together and do things we probably wouldn’t do otherwise. Tonight was FHE FearFactor, and the “weaksauce” event was swallowing a spoonful of cinnamon.

Four people volunteered—big smiles, scooped their spoonful of cinnamon. Someone counted down and the full spoonful went into each mouth. Next, soft puffs of cinnamon clouds started coming out of them, giving the room a pleasant holiday smell as each of them rushed to the sink or garbage to spit it out and drink large amounts of water to cleanse their throats. One of them, coughing and sputtering between gulping milk and blowing her nose said simply, “That wasn’t a very good idea.”

The cinnamon smell went away later when three people raced in transporting frozen peas, sardines, and sauerkraut in their mouth from one plate to another.

Numbers

Age in months of my nephew: 17
Number of times I’ve changed my major: 1
Number of bedrooms I’ve had: 6
Number of siblings: 2
Books I’ve completed since the third grade: 393
Months since I’ve seen my sister: 15
Number of photos on my computer: 3,766









Foreign language dictionaries, print and electronic, I own: 6
Number of pens I’ve used up this semester: 2
Hours spent in foreign language classes: 1,272


Hours slept last night: 3.5
Percent of my life spent in Sunday church services: 1.6
Paris of shoes that I own: 12
Number of roommates I’ve had: 17

Ennui Over.

New job, new weather, new research project, new class.

Ennui

I learned the word “ennui” in Mr. Gill’s ninth grade honor’s English class. I like the word, if not what it means, and it is coming to mind again recently. I realized this week that I have settled in again—after a few whirlwind months of traveling and moving between different situations, things feel routine again for the first time in awhile. Maybe I need another adventure. Or maybe I need to stop whining and just enjoy.

My yesterday in: Spanish, English, Italian, Chinese, French

I good-morning my roommates and jump into way-to-start-the-day review of literary devices (Spanish). I get out of my apartment and walk to class (English) where I learn about phonetics (Spanish). Next is Stats (English) and Literature (Spanish). I go study some more (English) and go back to my apartment (Spanish). My roommate and I watch Italy’s version of Dancing With the Stars (Italian) on cable, and she translates (into Spanish). Some people are getting together to have a camp fire, and we try to get more people to come (English). We go in the car with the two who speak (Chinese) and they chat. Campfire and marshmallows (English) and I learn how to say “stars” in (Chinese). Back to the apartment for a movie (English) but first visit the neighbors to borrow their popcorn popper (French). Turn on the subtitles (Spanish). I good-night my roommates (Spanish) and go to bed.

Rito de inicación

Last week I was inducted into Sigma Delta Pi, the honors society for my major.

Inducted. Seriously inducted.

They told us the oath had been toned down some in the last few years. Apparently it used to include a pledge to all that is good and beautiful that is and comes from Spain. Something like that. As it currently stands, this is what I promised (no going back now). Strait from the rite, translated from Spanish.

To the members of the Hispanic society Sigma Delta Pi: I offer you my loyalty and cooperation in your Hispanophile activities and I assure you that I participate in this act with all sincerity and good will.

They told us lots more things about things that are brave and good, then they turned out the lights and we stood in a circle and lit the candles we were each given—with these words:

Come—so have gone many before you. Take this warmth and this light that symbolize hard work and wisdom. This light that you have received is the flame that we entrust to you—may it always burn this bright. This flame in your hands symbolizes the ideal of our society. It is the flame of all that is beautiful and noble…it is the spiritual light that lights each of us. Let us live, then, in the light, and scatter the shadows….

Doodle

I have had a hard time of late staying captivated by my classes. Particularly with all the observing I have been doing for my education class. This is the third week of sitting in on two block-schedule foreign language classes a day at a high school or junior high. The novelty is wearing off a little (though there are always things to learn).

So I have increased my resolve to improve my doodling skills. Here are my best examples.


This is inspired by the necklace my classmate was wearing.

I am also working on fancy handwriting.

I forgot what inspired this one.

This wasn't actually in class, but when I was trying to avoid writing my French paper.

Utah is attempting a new approach to the social welfare of its residents.

Fall

I went hiking yesterday. Lately, when I’m outside walking, all sorts of thoughts go through my head. The air, the breezes, the coolness and sunlight all make it feel like fall. And fall makes me think of how wonderful it felt to go home after a day at school. It makes me think about being back in a routine, and about walking home, and about family dinners. It makes me think about when I would wait until 8:00 to do homework but I still got it done. It makes me think about the time I got home and my two sisters and my mom and I realized we were all wearing red shirts and jeans that day.

Fall makes me happy. Whenever the seasons change, I think, “This one. This one is my favorite.” But I think I just like the changes.

Tongue

I was at the grocery store at 7:30 this Saturday morning. I was walking around, and found these awful looking things in the meat department.

This is tongue. Cow tongues, lined up next to pigs feet and tripe.

Much of my life relates to the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary that I heard over and over and over again as I was growing up. This morning Ramona came to mind again—the time her and her sister had to make dinner, and had to use tongue because it was inexpensive. The characters narrated how awful a thing tongue was, and always in my mind, tongue was gray and about the size of an adult’s hand. If you can’t tell by my cell phone picture, tongue is slimy and looks like a mid-sized animal curled up in the package. Like a cross between a goldfish and a housecat.

Speaking of tongues, I am taking a class about the phonetics of Spanish. A good part of studying consists of looking at diagrams of how the mouth shapes sounds. (And trying to imitate them—slowly and thoroughly) I am gaining a new appreciation for the versatility of the tongue.

The little white dot left of center in this picture is the author Orson Scott Card—the author of Ender’s Game and a whole bunch of other books. He spoke at the school.

Listening to Orson Scott Card was kind of like reading his books. There are a few things that draw me in, like the book Ender’s Game did, and then other things—like most of his other books—that just don’t really hook me. As I listened to him though, he spoke about some things in a way I had never quite thought about before. Like how we can’t know things, but we can decide what things we will take as truth based what we experience. And that we have to be skeptical, but we decide what we will have faith in. If you are skeptical about everything, then you just have faith in skepticism.

Faith and skepticism aside, I spent the night Latin dancing. After I helped sculpt an ice cream head with the neighbors.

Today was my first day of observation for my education class. We were a group of five, and went to a junior high nearby and watched two Spanish classes. After, I had a bunch of questions for one of the teachers, and I asked them as the rest of the group kind of hung back waiting for me. I’m a geek about languages even among other people studying to be language teachers.

Tonight there was an evening church activity. I went with some people from my apartment complex. Two of them are in this picture. I met one of them a couple of days ago, and he told me his name. Dan. Then I saw him again yesterday, and said, “it’s Dan, right?” It turns out it wasn’t really Dan. It was a whole different person. So anyway, this is a picture of the two of them, plus Dan’s twin brother.

Labor Day

Our family went to Scotts Bluff, Nebraska for Labor Day weekend for my cousin's wedding. My mom is from Nebraska, and we used to go in the summer and for Thanksgiving. But I hadn’t been there for a few years.

I was struck by how different the landscape, the setting is from Utah. More open spaces that aren’t stopped by mountains. Open, yellow plains and bugs that eat you up at night. Scotts Bluff is small and calm. You cross train tracks and talk about going “into town.” And wide, yellow plains.

I had fun at the wedding. I got to spend some time with my cousins, one of whom is radiating in the photo below. My sister and nephew are in the other photos. One at the reception, where I got sent to the group of “single ladies” gathering on the dance floor rather reluctantly (and suspicious of what the DJ was going to make us do). It turned out we were there to catch the bouquet. This surprised me for some reason. It made me feel grown up, or something.

School has started, and I have been so busy I can hardly think. I have thought the same thing at the beginning of each new school year in college: I can't ever get enough done in a day. There is too much to do.

Fiction and Life

If you haven’t read the seventh Harry Potter and are planning to—this post has some spoilers.

I finished it this afternoon, sitting in my backyard. Midway through chapter 33 I started crying. Harry Potter was going to be killed—he wouldn’t grow up, he wouldn’t even see the end of all the horror. And it was that horror that made me cry, too. That things were so dark, that people lived in fear and couldn’t move about and live freely. That he saw the bodies of his friends.

It felt ridiculous that I listened to the leaves rustling in my backyard and thought about these tragedies. JK Rowling writes fiction, so it wouldn’t ever matter what happened to Harry Potter the literary character. But I was bothered, in the back of my mind, by how that battle scenes and dying aren’t restricted to works of fiction. And that real battles aren’t so clearly divided between good vs. evil. Real life is so much more complicated than that—good and bad are all mixed together. Like in Iraq. I imagine both sides (if there even were clearly defined sides) feel they are fighting for country and for a good government and for freedom.

I had always wondered, had I been born in the midst of the American Revolution or in Nazi Germany or during the Civil Rights movement, what I would have done. I wonder what side I would have joined—or if I would have even recognized what was going on around me. I have a feeling that, in such extraordinary circumstances, I would have kept my head down and my nose clean. Which makes me feel guilty.

The Toilets of France

I have been meaning to post these pictures. It was after the second Turkish toilet during my France stay that I decided I needed to document the toilets of France.


Rouen.

The toilet in the sewer museum in Paris really should have been part of an exhibit.

It is within the last year, I believe, that the public toilets in Paris have been made free of charge.

At the sculpture workshop in Jumiège, housed in a nineteenth-century stone barn

A shopping center in downtown Rouen. Cost: 50 centimes.

The bathroom of my host family (Rouen). I always found it disconcerting that there were large holes in the door.

Cherbourg, near the sea.

At the Caen train station. This whole room was tiled, and jets of water would come out of the walls and wash the entire floor. 30 centimes.

SNCF train, somewhere between Cherbourg and Caen.

Bayeux. I have never seen fancier.

Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

California: there and back

There is no ocean in Utah. Maybe, technically, there isn’t in California. But there are beaches. My brother-in-law directed the group of us to this one Friday night, and we stood and watched as dusk got darker. As we were leaving, we saw three guys in a white pickup attach a chain to a sigh and tear it down, then drive away. We took down the license plate, but I don’t think anyone got around to reporting it in the end.

Waiting for our flight Saturday, my Mom and I explored a bit—in “Little Italy,” apparently. There were a fair number of antique-style shops, including this salvage hardware store. Buildings getting torn down has always bothered me. It is so permanent once they are torn down. And old ones so often disappear to put up new ones, which bothers me as well. I have always thought salvage was a good idea. Save what you can—the old is often so much more beautiful.

This is the Great Salt Lake from the plane. Electronics—like digital cameras—aren’t allowed at this point, as the plane is landing. It was so lovely, though. So I took the picture.

Airports and Musicals

I spent the weekend in San Diego. My sister and her husband and baby just moved out there. We spent Saturday morning on the beach, and I took some California sun home with me.

Traveling was awful. Coming back from France was the same thing. As I went through Paris Charles de Gaulle, and London Heathrow, and New York JFK, I kept thinking “this airport is awful.” But then it wasn’t just one airport, it was the next one, too. At de Gaulle, I spent longer waiting in the line for my passport to be checked than the length of the flight: the distance between the airport doors and the passport people was farther than the distance between Paris and London.

But of course, no one really needs to hear more complaining about the airline industry.

While I was in France, I never figured out how to say “airline”--and I ended up talking about them (or trying to) a fair amount. I think what I said most of the time was “airplane companies.” Close, but not quite....

I saw the movie Hairspray tonight. As it got started, I was reminded of another blast-from-the-past high school musical, Grease. Well, actually, first I was reminded of the Sponge Bob Square Pants movie, and then I was reminded of Grease. I think Hairspray should get higher marks. Rather than singing about cars and conformity, they sang about things like racial integration and accepting yourself.

Harry and the Potters...again...

Watch a video of the Harry and the Potters concert at www.fourbysix.net. It's like being there. Well, five minutes of being there rather than two hours of being there.

Cody the Giant German Shepherd

I’m working part time at my parents’ veterinary clinic while I’m home for the month, before I start back at school in September. Both my parents are veterinarians, and I had a brief veterinarian phase myself, followed by a neurologist phase and a little later by the longer lasting foreign language teacher phase that has coincided with my major at school. I have realized a taste for things medical has remained, though.

The other day my mom showed me how to intubate a dog--stick a tube down its trachea. The word “intubate” I learned from watching “ER” (which went with an emergency-room physician phase), but it turns out that’s really what it’s called. Anyway, once the intubated dog was out and my mom started doing the dental, I moved on to clipping its toenails. I cut one too close and it started to bleed. I stopped it by dipping it in some powder, as shown, then Stephanie asked me to go get a dog from the kennels that needed to be prepared for surgery--to be neutered.

“Its name is Cody,” Stephanie said. “It’s a 116-pound German shepherd, you’ll be able to find it no problem.”

“Isn’t he mean?” asked my mom.

“Yeah,” said Stephanie. “She can handle it. Can’t you, Carrie?”

“Yes,” I said. Automatically. Without thinking.

It was as I was walking out to the kennel to get Cody the 116-pound German shepherd that I realized what I was doing. Going out to find giant dog. A German shepherd, the kind of dog that rips the arms of criminals. He would probably smell the blood on my hands from the dental’s toenails, and then that would be it.

Cody was nice enough, though. A little overweight. Not an attack dog after all.

Harry and the Potters

I went to a concert Saturday with my friend Jessica. We went to the Salt Lake City library to see Harry and the Potters perform--opened by Draco and the Malfoys. Draco and the Malfoys sang songs like “My dad is rich, your dad is dead” and “99 death eaters go by.”

Harry and the Potters, after singing about topics including saving Ginny Weasley from the basilisk, the enchanted ceiling, and Fluffy the three-headed dog, closed with “The Weapon We Have is Love.” The weapon against the forces of evil is love.

I know it is cheesy, but I left inspired.

Visit their HP Alliance page to be uplifted. And to have a listen.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=41713428

Home!

Everything is so familiar. It is good to be home.

So many times while I was in France, I would wake up and think, “I’m in France!” and simply be amazed. Since I’ve gotten back, it’s switched to waking up thinking, “I’m in the United States!” When it all comes down to it, that’s pretty amazing as well. I’m an American. I’m in the US. How cool is that.

I started reading Harry Potter today. Not the seventh yet. I was planning to read all of the books before the seventh, then that looked like a lot of work, so I decided just to review the sixth. But then…I decided I really did have to start back at the beginning. I finished the second book today, and it felt wonderfully like summer. I laid in the hammock in our back yard. It was hot, beautifully and so dry-hot. The mountains, which I missed, the hammock, and a good book. After all the rain in Normandy, it finally felt like summer.

Today I finished my bas-relief, ate lunch along the Seine, kissed two dozen French people, had an apéro at a sculpture workshop, talked to a communist, and had a midnight hot chocolate at a sidewalk cafe.

I can't believe I'm leaving.

A Little Too Academic (sorry)

Today we went to see the abbey of Jumièges. It is an extraordinary place--a huge abbey in ruins. Most of the main building that is still standing is romanesque, and an amazing example of a romanesque structure because it is so tall--a demonstration of the power of abbeys at the time, and of the afluence of the area. The abbey, and an accompanying legend of the "enervés" of Jumièges, illustrate as well the former path of the Seine. The river currently flows a good kilometer from the abbey, but once must have been closer.

The legend of the "enervés" tells of two sons who commited treason in leading an army against their royal father. Their crime merited death, which their mother, the queen, could simply not support. So the king agreed on a lesser punishment. The two were "enervé"--the nerves in their legs were cut--then they were sent down the Seine in a boat filled with food. The monks at the abbey of Jumièges took them in and cared for them. This painting depicting the scene, "Les Énervés de Jumièges" by Évariste Vital Luminais, is at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Rouen.

I had already visited the abbey a few weeks ago, but hadn't gone on a tour like we did this time. The coolest part, though, was when the tour ended, for some reason just the people in the workshop got to go down and see other parts of the abbey campus--or what used to exist of the abbey campus: a bakery, stables...they think only about a fourth of the buildings that stood at the abbey's heyday exist now. The tour guide went and got two flash lights that could have been used during WWII and he unlocked an iron gate in a wall. We desended--it was dark and damp and a bit slipery--a staircase into a chamber with a vaulted ceiling, then turned around and walked down a long tunnel that lead to another dark, vaulted room, then down another tunnel that ended, bricked off. I had forgot my camera this morning. The picture, that I found on Google, is pretty close, but think no lights, a dirt floor, and peaked (gothic style), not rounded.