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| | The 5 Word Spelling Story | | | Friday, July 11, 2008 (11:49 PM)
(I'm feeling weird) | | Syd and I were talking last night about her teaching, and we got into some of the nitty gritty of how to help students learn spelling. One of the tools she uses is to have them make up a story that includes 5 specific spelling words. Now I liked this idea for myself! It sounded like a good creative challenge. Of course I'd have to chose my own five words, I lamented, which would make it that much less fun and creative. Well, have no fear... lol... Ms. Syd is here! She quickly offered me five (or so) words - gigantocellular tegmental field neuron, surprise, congealed, paramecium, and fluorescent. And here's what I came up with:
Gigi, a gigantocellular tegmental field neuron, floated happily in her petri dish under a bright fluorescent light in the biology lab. A scientist walked up and placed another petri next to Gigi’s dish and then left. Gigi was delighted! What a lovely surprise! In the dish next to her was the sweetest little creature - a tiny paramecium that endlessly swam about, turning slow and easy circles around itself. She named him Perry.
Gigi reached out a dendrite, up and over the adjoining glass walls, to stroke Perry's soft cilia. In response, he wavered the fine hair from one end of his unicellular body to the other in a kind of microscopic purr. Under the spell of her cytoplasmic touch, he soon fell asleep and dreamt that the water around him had congealed. All of his cilia were blissfully motionless - a feat he had never once accomplished in his waking life.
When Perry awoke from his peaceful slumber, he had split in two! In hours, two became four, then four became eight, and more. Gigi laughed at every split, never having seen the likes of these fissionary antics before. Soon the scientist came back to retrieve Perry’s dish. The many Perrys waved thousands of goodbyes to the giggling Gigi as the glass was lifted away.
In the next room, the scientist examined the dish under the microscope and duly recorded the exact number of paramecia now present. The Perrys all danced in front of him, yet he couldn't see it. This job bored the scientist so terribly, all this counting. What a shame he'd never realize that every paramecium dreams, and every neuron feels only delight.
So here's the challenge... do you dare? Your five spelling words are: chimerical, confession, linguini, salamander, and trampoline. Post your story on your blog, and leave me a comment letting me know it's there.... tee hee hee, happy writing!
And thanks Ms. Syd. This is for you.
| | | 193 Views | 18  Thumbs Up | 10 Comments |  |
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| | Technology | | | Monday, May 19, 2008 (12:36 AM)
(I'm feeling a little peculiar.) | | |
I went out for a bite to eat and a good cup 'o coffee tonight, and I brought my journal along. Tonight, without my usual laptop, I sat on the outdoor patio. The evening was perfectly cool, perfectly warm. Often when I'm alone in that cafe, I'll hook my laptop up to the wireless and sit to enjoy dinner with some folks on LV or somewhere else in the lovely cyber world. Instead tonight I flipped open my leather-brown journal and reached to write that I was there "without technology".
And then I felt the pen in my hand.
It is a smooth and stream-lined thing; efficient, inexpensive and reliable. Nothing fancy, the Bic Ultra Round Stic Grip, fine point with blue ink. How could I overlook this? There are several hundred years of technology behind this instrument, I thought, as I adjusted the collar of my jean jacket. Why, there were people who worked solely to perfect the fluidity of this ink! The ball point! The barrel! The cap! Hundreds of years? More like thousands since some human thought to make a mark that would have meaning.
My jean jacket?! my mind started taking off in flight with thoughts on this technology... amazing! The durability, the fit, the seams and rivetted buttons. The coloring and fabric! The technology of something that fits around the body and can be easily removed and replaced. Astounding! Soon, I could see how it was all around me - utensils, chair, table, pants, napkin, mug, glass, ice, salt and pepper shakers, patio stones, paper, my journal! It was endless technology built on hundreds or thousands of years of human creativity and intelligence. Why, the technology in my underwear alone (ahem) was phenomenal.
I was so overwhelmed by all that I had taken for granted in that singular moment of about-to-be-writingness that I had a sudden deep longing to be free of it. Beyond all of my gratitude and appreciation, I wanted for a few moments to find out who I am without all of this, to be an animal again. The image that came was this:
Swimming
naked
in a lake.
Even then, I thought, my instincts wouldn't guide me. My hands would push through the water in strokes crafted over two hundred years for the efficiency of human motion. I pulled my chair up closer to the table and set the pen's ballpoint down to the page. The simple power of this act was suddenly inescapable.
Am I master of all this technology, I wondered?
I n e s c a p a b l e . | | | | 161 Views | 14 Thumbs Up | 9 Comments | |
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| | Rainer Maria Rilke... of dragons and princesses | | | Friday, April 25, 2008 (10:45 PM)
(I'm feeling awake) | |
"We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."
Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet
(translated by Stephen Mitchell)
Artwork by Brian Andreas
| | | | 178 Views | 12 Thumbs Up | 7 Comments | |
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| | Google Survey | | | Thursday, March 13, 2008 (6:51 PM)
(I'm feeling relaxed) | | Here's my version of the Google Survey that folks have been putting on their blogs. I first saw this on Syd's blog, who saw it on OutOfTheShadow's blog (which is where you can find instructions to do it yourself... thanks OutOfTheShadow! ) A lot of folks have blogged their responses since and they've been really fun to see... basically, you type the answer for each of these questions into the Google image search engine and pick an image.
Here goes...
1. How old will you be on your next birthday?
2. A place you'd like to travel to?
3. Your favourite place?
4. Your favourite time of pastime?
5. Your favourite food?
6. Your favourite animal?
7. Your favourite colour?
8. The town in which you were born?
9. The town in which you live?
10. The name of a past pet?
11. In what year were you born?
12. Your favorite drink?
13. A secret desire of yours?
14. Your greatest fear?
15. Your biggest achievement?
16. A bad habit of yours?
17. Your first job?
18. What time is it right now?
19. What day is this?
20. What do you think about surveys like this?
| | | | 235 Views | 10 Thumbs Up | 6 Comments | |
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| | The House | | | Saturday, February 23, 2008 (10:56 AM)
(I'm feeling indescribable) | | The House
The House had splintered
long before
I was born,
a canopy
of old wood
hanging above us.
it let in the rain,
it let in the wind,
and sun fell long through
broken out windows.
the vines grew in,
tree branches - through,
and floors - carpets
of moss and leaf.
all that rain.
an animal might do well here.
foraging, scavenging,
hunting. curling into
the reeds at night,
unseen.
Domestication
requires a hand.
One that reaches,
feeds, touches.
Even in the open air,
a mother could make fire
of that old clapboard.
Cook a meal.
Tell a story.
Rock her child to sleep. | | | | 203 Views | 12 Thumbs Up | 7 Comments | |
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