otoh

My phone rang at 4:40 AM on Monday. In my experience, predawn phone calls are (A) a wrong number from a drunk or another time zone or (B) really really really bad news. I managed to get awake enough to see the caller ID and the winner is… WTF??!!! (C) the school system that I work for! Teachers are never really off the job, but this is ridiculous.

Our county office recently installed a computerized calling system. It is intended to be used to notify us of emergency situations. (Hurricane season starts tomorrow!) School principals can also use it to call parents or staff for special activities and such. Since the school year ended last week and I am technically unemployed for the next two months, I let it go to voicemail and went back to sleep.

Later that morning I listened to the message. There was a break-in at one of the middle schools. It was supposed to be sent only to a small group of principals (presumably at a later time). Apparently it went to just about everyone in the database including parents. Oops! When the local news got ahold of the story later that day someone from the county office indicated that it was human error. That means that (A) no one will ever ever ever take responsibility for it or (B) they will blame some clerk that had the task dumped on them by the person that really should be responsible.

You gotta love the system….

Technorati tags: When Technology Bites Back - Part One~blog~personal~otoh

Three times in the last few weeks I’ve had someone (three different people) tell me that they were having a conversation about me with someone else. I have an initial impulse when this happens (that, so far, I have managed to quell) to ask, “Why the hell are you talking about me?”

I’m not comfortable with the knowledge that other people talk about me. Aside from the fact that there must be way more interesting topics it makes me paranoid. But I will probably never ask why the hell anyone would talk about me. I try not to ask questions that I don’t want to know the answers to. And it’s easier to dismiss my paranoia when it’s based on imaginary fears than if I really know….

Technorati tags: Doesn’t Mean They Aren’t Out to Get Me~blog~personal~otoh

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day to honor those who have died in Military service. For the last 35 years it has been celebrated on the last Monday in May and has come to represent the beginning of summer, the opening of public swimming pools, the first long weekend of the backyard barbecue season. Its original intent seems all but lost.

No one close to me has died in the military, but I had a cousin seriously wounded in VietNam and my father served in World War II. Dad enlisted in the army in 1943 at the age of 18, just out of high school. He never tells war stories. He has a few bits of memorabilia stashed in a closet that I’ve only seen once or twice. He mentioned recently that he started to read the book The Greatest Generation. He said he enjoyed Tom Brokaw’s introduction, but when he realized the rest of the book was war stories, he quit reading it. Yet, after he retired, he started attending some military reunions. Apparently, that was just an excuse to travel rather than any desire to relive old times.

I never considered joining the military. I graduated high school two years after the fall of Saigon so the patriotic climate was completely different from my father’s time. I never even had to register for Selective Service. For the most part, I consider myself a pacifist. I think though, that had I been drafted I probably would have served rather than being a conscientious objector. I’m really glad that’s a choice I never had to make.

I’m also really glad that there are still young people that do enlist in military service even if I don’t always agree with where they are sent. I respect their dedication and I mourn the loss of those who make the ultimate sacrifice. Today especially.

P.S. Shortly after posting this I heard the following tid-bit: In the opening credits of the TV show Gomer Pyle, USMC there is a scene with the title character trying to march in formation while Sergeant Carter berates him. I never knew that all the rest of the people in that scene were real marines and they shipped out not long after that was filmed. Many of them didn’t survive their tour of duty. For years afterward, Jim Nabors got letters from the families of those soldiers. They would watch the show every week and get one more look at their boys.

Hmmm.

Technorati tags: A Memorial~blog~personal~otoh

According to Greek Mythology, humans lived in a paradise until Pandora’s curiosity let loose all manor of ills including poverty, crime, sorrow, disease (plague), etc. The last thing she unleashed was hope and that begs the question whether hope was the only good thing in the mix or is yet another tribulation.

It can be argued that hope deludes us into thinking we have some measure of control over the future. That leads to disappointment, or worse, when our hopes are not realized. Hope is a four-letter word.

Some philosophies encourage us to relinquish power (to god, fate, or the universe for example) and, in doing so, gain hope. To them, hope is a comfort. Ironically though, hope comes not from believing we have control but from proclaiming that we don’t.

My level of hope waxes and wanes but rarely have I felt totally hopeless. It’s a miserable and perilous experience. I like (the delusion) that I have choices and some control over my destiny. I don’t always make good choices, but I’ll take my lumps and move on much happier than if I feel like I had no choice to make. (Do I have control issues? You betcha!) And I can live with occasional disappointment.

Noelle: Dlsappointment doesn’t kill.
Dr. Abby Barnes: Right… rejection kills. Dlsappointment only maims.

From the movie The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Q: How do you make hope float?
A: A tall glass, cold coke, two scoops of ice cream, and hope….

Technorati tags: Hope Floats~blog~personal~otoh

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate. Often translated as “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” These are the words inscribed on the Gate of Hell in Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

I think that many students imagine that the classroom door is the gate to hell. And, even though I’m sure the literary reference is lost on most of them, they duly abandon hope as they enter. It can, after all, be a pretty horrific place. But, it’s still a lot safer generally than the real world.

We gave the last of our final exams today. The graduation ceremony was last Friday. (Seniors took their exams two weeks ago.) We always hear this time of year about the fact that graduation is referred to as commencement, which means a beginning. We have unleashed another generation to begin making lives for themselves.

But I think the ones who believe high school is hell have it backwards. I wonder how many of them will come to believe that the inscription was meant to be read when they leave high school, not when they enter it. They become dull automata working at jobs they hate leading lives they despise. For how many will high school be the high mark against which the rest of their life pales in comparison? They aren’t entering hell when they come in to high school, but we may be the gate to the hell that is the real world.

Or not.

Technorati tags: Abandon Hope~blog~personal~otoh

Blogging about blogging is boring, I know. And been done to death. But I had a point in here somewhere (beside the hole in my head?) that at one time I thought was worth making. You can skip this post though. It’s not like I’ll know the difference….

I lurk. A lot.

Sure, there are a few places where I leave comments on a semi-regular basis (particularly those I have been reading the longest), but there are many more that I read and rarely or never comment. Some people consider this to be rude and I swear I mean no offense.

Posting comments often feels like small talk to me. I suck at small talk. (It’s that writer thing again.) Fortunately, since I’m getting around to each of you only once or twice a week these days, you’re not likely to know if I post a comment as soon as I read your post or hours/days later.

There are oceans of feelings between us
Currents that take us and sweep us away
That’s why we seldom have seen us
In the light of a cold hard day

Lots of new friends with the same old answers
Open your eyes, you might see
If our lives were that simple
We’d live in the past
If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me

If the phone doesn’t ring
You’ll know that it’s me
I’ll be out in the eye of the storm
If the phone doesn’t ring
you’ll know that I’ll be
Where someone can make me feel warm
It’s too bad we can’t turn
and live in the past
If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me

I’m also less likely to comment when there are already a lot of comments to a particular post. I read one site recently that had over 500 comments to one post. (I didn’t look to see if half of those were responses from the author. Hmmm, you know, I also rarely respond directly to comments on my site. Again, I mean no offense.) It’s not likely I’ll have anything new to add if you’ve got dozens or more comments already. And pretty much the only time I post a “me too” type of comment is on the HNT sites I visit.

Some of you carry on little conversations in your comments. The people who like that seem to really like that. It’s just not me. If you responded in your comments to a comment I left, chances are good I never saw it. If I thought there would be interesting comments from others that came through after I did, I might go back and see it. Or if I asked a question and wondered if you answered it. Otherwise I have left my footprints, taken my photos, and moved on as they say.

My online time is limited and will be for a few more weeks. My email piles up. I post less often. I read your blogs less often. And the few comments I used to make are trickling down to precious fewer. So I want you to know that some of those comments you’re not getting… they’re from me.

I’ve had good days and bad days
And going half mad days
I try to let go but you’re still on my mind
I’ve lost all the old ways
I’m searching for new plays
Putting it all on the line

Lots of new friends with the same old problems
Open your eyes, you might see
If our lives were that simple
We’d live in the past
If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me

If it takes all the future
We’ll live through the past
If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me

IF THE PHONE DOESN’T RING, IT’S ME
by Jimmy Buffett, Will Jennings, Michael Utley

Technorati tags: No Comment~blog~personal~otoh

I have never wanted to be a school administrator. I have worked for some really good ones and a couple really bad ones and I wouldn’t want to trade places with any of them. But I have left jobs as a direct result of their actions.

I have a deep distrust of administrators with little classroom experience. (What I find even more scary is that some schools are hiring administrators with no classroom experience at all. Ack!) But even with several years of classroom time under their belts, too many of them suffer from what I like to call administrative amnesia — they forget what it was like. They are no longer tied to the bell schedule or a roomful of students. And when it is no longer part of their daily experience, it too easily drops low in (or out of) their decision-making.

Bill Gates is not one of my favorite people, although I have to respect that he is using his wealth and influence to try to improve world health. A few years ago I read his book, Business @ the Speed of Thought. I wrote down a couple quotes at the time and two of them have been bouncing around my head lately.

The old saying “Knowledge is Power” sometimes makes people hoard knowledge. They believe that knowledge hoarding makes them indespensable. Power comes not from knowledge kept, but from knowledge shared. A company’s values and reward system should reflect that idea. [My emphasis.]

Information enables good employees to shine. Information creates accountability. Information eliminates excuses.

You might think that in the field of education such concepts would be basic to our operation. Sadly, school administration is a huge bureaucracy that, I think, gets in the way of us doing our job. And while I don’t think schools can run like most other businesses (I’ll rant about that some other time) that doesn’t mean we have nothing to learn from them. Especially since administration is sort of the “business end” of the process.

Administrators have to make decisions that affect my daily life. They can (and usually do) do this without asking for my input. They can even choose to withhold informing me of their decisions for some period of time. They can do that just so there is less time they have to listen to my opinions or, in fact, for no reason at all. But, just because they can doesn’t make it right.

Technorati tags: The Ivory Tower~blog~personal~otoh~sydca

I still don’t remember who said that writers are the people that don’t think of the snappy response until they’re driving home from the party. But thanks to Jenn who steered me to The New Book of Lists I now know that the French have a term for it.

First, a brief digression. I have the original Book of Lists in hardback from 1977. (At least, I’m pretty sure it’s still around somewhere. Many of my books are boxed up since I ran out of shelf space….) It was a lot of fun and, I think, helped pave the way for Trivial Pursuit a few years later. The brief perusal I had of this new edition indicates this one is just as much fun, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Anyway, one of the new lists is words that don’t really translate into other languages. (I was so excited to get this term and it’s definition that I didn’t write down the title of the list. Doh!) [edit: The title is "17 words that don't translate directly into English" Thanks, Jenn.] So, the French have a term, “esprit de l’escalier” that translates literally as “the spirit of the staircase,” meaning “the brilliantly witty response to a public insult that comes into your mind only after you have left the party.” Personally, I’ll continue to refer to us as writers, but the fact that there is a term just for this indicates it is a fairly universal phenomenon. (At least, apparently, here and in France. Just like doppelgangers are apparently common here and in Germany. But that will have to be another post.)

I’m a little surprised, given the reputation for attitude that the French have, that they need a term for this. I suppose that “va te faire foutre avez chié tête” isn’t considered an appropriately snappy response. Since I don’t speak French, I used the translation tools here and here to get that phrase. And just to check its effectiveness, I took the resulting phrase and had them translate back into English. What I got was “get stuffed shit head” which was not exactly what I started with. Can any French speakers tell me whether “get stuffed” is vernacular for “fuck you” or did they just clean up what I entered?

And that, like most things, reminds me of an old joke. The story is that a group of engineers were working on a computer program to translate between languages. During the testing phase they translated “out of sight, out of mind” into Chinese. But, their Chinese expert was not around to verify the results. So they decided to take the output and translate it back into English. And they got “invisible idiot.”

Can the drummer give us a rimshot now?

Technorati tags: A Hose is a Hose is a Hose~blog~personal~otoh

If you don’t know what this is, consider looking here, here, here, here, and here. But the contents are of no consequence, of that I am confident….

Socrates was a philosopher. He talked a lot. They poisoned him. ~ 4th grade essay

The strong take from the weak, but the smart take from the strong.

If journalism were easy, Newsweek would do it.

The delicious futility of impossible tasks is the catnip of overachievers.

Only a man who sees giants can ever stand upon their shoulders.

To repeat what others have said requires education. To challenge it requires brains. ~Mary Pettibone Poole

We keep discussing whether ‘under god’ should be in our pledge when we should be discussing ‘justice for all.’

If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out? ~Will Rogers

When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks. ~Eugene V. Debs

I moved your cheese. Get over it.

I have a hole in my head, but that’s beside the point.

A website, as you know, is a resource designed to provide quick and easy access to outdated or useless information. ~ Mary Roach

When people can walk away from you let them walk. Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left. ~ T.D. Jakes

2B or not 2B. That is the square root of 4B squared.

Polylingual means that I speak several languages. What did you think it meant?

Cunning linguist

Give me some words I can dance to and a melody that rhymes. ~ Steve Goodman

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but it still needs mowing.

Necessity is a mother.

Lurkers are welcome here. Uh, just leave me a message so I know you came by….

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh~Or You Could Just Keep Pressing F5 - part six

I’m thinking today of confidence. Confidence = with trust. (Don’t believe me? Look here. What am I saying? I’m confident you believe me, but it’s a good link anyway….) More specifically, I’m thinking about the confidence we have in ourselves versus the confidence others have in us.

With trust. With faith. Confidence is not the absence of doubt, although it’s often used that way. Confidence means taking that step (or that leap) in spite of our doubts. So it occurs to me that we can never really substitute the confidence someone else has in us for self-confidence. At best, your trust in me can inspire trust in myself. But I can never act without that trust in myself.

I sometimes (often) have more confidence in my students’ capabilities than they do. Conversely, they sometimes (often) have more confidence in their ability to be [rich/famous/professional athlete/actor/model/etc.] than I do¹, but that’s a whole different topic. I sometimes awake in the middle of the night with doubts that I can do my job, but I have confidence that I can get up every morning and do it, even do it well. I wasn’t really thinking of this in relation to my job though, it’s just that teachers are never really away from their jobs.

As a basically shy person, I don’t have a lot of self-confidence in many social situations. Now, I’m not a social pariah. In fact, I get along well with people and would even say that I am generally well-liked. (Self-doubt doesn’t have to be reasonable or rational.) But I have to be in a place where I can act in spite of my doubts. And you know, it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks I can do or should do.

But it’s all right now, I learned my lesson well.
You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself

from Garden Party by Rick Nelson

¹Perhaps a healthy dose of doubt would make them consider more probable outcomes or gage their abilities more objectively. But, it is not my job to limit their ambitions, only to help them find the path to get there. They have to decide for themselves whether it is a path they can follow.

Technorati tags: And it Must Follow, as the Night the Day~blog~personal~otoh~sydca