Letters from Lisa

I just watched the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD, and Ihave this note for you:

I saw the special edition Return of the Jedi in theaters, but on the DVD there is an additional change to the ending. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should.

May the Force be with you.

The travel agent just confirmed the last piece of my itinerary. I’m going to Australia!

If you’d like, you can read about my 5 day tour of the wilderness of the Northern Territory. It’s going to be really special!

Now the onus is on me to finish squeezing all my Scandinavia photos from last summer into albums before I start accumulating more pictures!

It’s a commonly known fact that report writing makes me ravenous. I think I have eaten more food today than the three previous days combined, and that includes the entire bag of Twizzlers I scarfed down while watching Star Wars. Okay, while watching the Star Wars previews.

I’m going to proffer the lame excuse that I must be using extra amounts of glucose due to increased brain activity associated with report writing, and so I am replenishing my body’s supply of readily available energy.

Or maybe I expended several million calories climbing out, and getting tossed back into, the dunk tank at the Carnival on Saturday. I got quite a workout, complete with bruises and sore muscles. But it was all worth it to hear one of my ex-students screech, “I just want to see a Lord of the Rings genius go underwater!” as though I were up there reciting in Elvish.

(I just accidentally typed “reciting in Elvis” which seriously puts an entirely different spin on things)

(Not that there’s anything wrong with Elvis, mind you)

(Or Elvish)

(Okay, I’m rambling)

(This is what I get for writing reports all day)

(Enough with the parentheses!)

Obviously I have not eaten enough since I am clearly devoid of brainpower. This is me, going back into the kitchen.

- My Australia trip is completely confirmed, except for the accomodations in Darwin. Who would’ve thought that would be the hard part? My travel agent continues to work on it.

- I totally have to go shopping for camping/backpacking equipment. I have several good lists of supplies needed and that will be my big assignment in the coming weeks.

- I’ve been reading through old journal entries from my last Earthwatch trip to get myself psyched up for the new one. I haven’t been thinking much about it since it’s been booked for so long… I was concerned with the OTHER part of the trip. Now I get to think about both! I can’t wait to see turtles again!

- I just purchased my ticket for La Boheme at the Sydney Opera House. Now I have to get my hands on that soundtrack… and figure out what I’m going to wear!

- I recently re-read Bill Bryson’s “In A Sunburned Country” — still the best travel book about Australia that I’ve encountered, and I’ve sought out MANY.

Well, I finally saw Revenge of the Sith last night. I’m not going to attempt a comprehensive review, just a few points of note:

Thought #1: That’s more like it! It was so exciting to see a Star Wars movie that was all about action and plot movement, instead of speechmaking and Disneyeque characters and video game tie-ins. This one wasn’t afraid to get dark and dangerous. I felt like the Jedi finally had something real to fight against — real villains worthy of them! In the earlier movies I was left scratching my head, wondering why they weren’t faster to figure out what was going on or acting more decisively. My only disappointment in this respect was the character of Padme, who basically gets pregnant and then sits around worrying about her husband, yet doesn’t manage to figure out that he’s turning to the dark side until it’s way too late. George, your audience doesn’t want Desperate Housewives, it wants strong and capable women! (Evidence: Padme’s daughter Leia…) It was hard to imagine Anakin getting so worked up about her when she basically sat around and did nothing!

Thought #2: Oh, that explains it… We finally figure out why some Jedis come back as glowing spirit-things and others don’t. We get at least a hint of Anakin’s true origin, which is a lot less sanctimonious virgin-birth than Episode I made it sound. We get to see how everybody ends up where they end up at the beginning of A New Hope. It all starts to make sense. No complaints here.

Thought #3: Your arm’s off! No it isn’t! It’s just a flesh wound! This movie is probably more graphic and violent than the other five Star Wars movies put together. There are limbs hacked off, numerous massacres, and one particularly disturbing scene that happens off-screen but involves Anakin targeting a group of defenseless children. This movie is PG-13 for a reason. Now what is it with George Lucas and missing limbs anyway? I will say this, though — the violence is NOT gratuitous. If we are to believe that evil is triumphing and that this is a full-scale war, we’d better see some evidence of that. I don’t think this movie glorifies war. In fact, it makes it clear that the war is all the workings of an evil mind who is trying to dominate all life.

Thought #4: Democracy is a big topic in this movie. It’s basically about the failure of the democratic republic and the rise of a dictator, who pretends he is the champion of freedom and democracy while completely dismantling both. And it’s clear that many of the people are deceived by it. Boy, does THAT feel familiar! It shows quite clearly that choosing “security” over freedom almost guarantees that you will end up with neither. It also shows the danger of dealing in moral absolutes — like when Anakin says, “You’re either with me, or you’re my enemy!” In other words, “I may be a Sith, but YOU are the Axis of Evil!”

Thought #5: Are the Jedis really Buddhists? To me it is strongly starting to feel that way, especially after some of the comments made by Yoda on the subjects of loss, death, and attachments.

Thought #6: Poor Christopher Lee. First Saruman is dispatched in the opening minutes of Return of the King, and then Count Dooku… well… Basically Saruman and Count Dooku are the same person, aren’t they?

Thought #7: Saw the trailer for the Chronicles of Narnia movie. It looks gorgeous. Hey, Tolkein had his time, and now his buddy C.S. Lewis is about to have his… If you haven’t read The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe recently, you have about six months to catch up before the movie comes out in December. I’m excited!

We’ve got another song to add to the canon of World’s Most Annoying… and that would be Livin’ La Vida Loca.

Besides the fact that the Spanglish makes me squirm (and listen to the lyrics sometime… it either makes no sense, or it does, and if it does, start worrying) it happens to be the song that plays whenever you hit the “demo” button on the music department’s keyboards.

You know my kids and their little fingers. Expert button-pushers.

On the bus ride to the overnight, one of them figured out that the song is on the Shrek 2 soundtrack (sung by Donkey and Puss in Boots, which is a slight improvement) so she kept on saying, “Hey Lisa! Listen to this! It’s a really great song!” or “Lisa, I found this country song… listen!” and then shoved her headphones over my ears.

So I got to hear the first twenty seconds of Livin’ La Vida Loca approximately 17,000 times over the course of the trip. If I close my eyes and listen carefully, I can still hear it now.

The trip was great otherwise!

My kids are floating on air — we are leaving for Sturbridge Village bright and early tomorrow morning. We’ve spent the last few days fielding (and fending off) myriad questions about the bus ride, the village, and especially sleeping over for the night. (My personal favorite was from the child who wanted to know if the hotel might not have termites…) This is my fourth overnight with the school, but my first time at Sturbridge. So I’m sure to learn something too!

We also said goodbye to our student teacher today. The kids were sad (amidst all the bouncing and hand-clapping associated with the field trip) but we gave her a nice send-off, complete with — what else? — NUMA NUMA IEI!!! and MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW!!! and, although we didn’t have a recording of it, I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves, everybody’s nerves, everybody’s nerves… I’m sure our voices will be ringing in her head for days!

Brought back some nice memories of my own student teaching days,which weren’t that long ago… those kids are in 6th and 7th grade now and still making faces at me in the hallway! Finally got that one kid to stop exclaiming, “You’re dead meat!” whenever he saw me. (He and I both knew he was talking about our long-standing checkers feud, but some bystanders might have been a bit confused!) I still chuckle when I think about the logic of children, as evidenced by this exchange on my second to last day:

Children: (tugging on me) We’re not letting you leave this school! We’re locking you in the closet!

Children: Oh. Good point.

The next day (post Phantom Menace viewing — in retrospect a closet might have been more entertaining) they decided that I should live at one of their houses, so that I could come to school with them every day. A few of them got into a spirited debate about whose house would be best — “She could sleep on the floor of my room! It’s big!” “She could have my bed and I’ll sleep on the floor!” — totally ignoring the fact that I was not moving anywhere, and in fact was already hired to come back in the fall, and I was only leaving because my student teaching placement had ended. Still, cute.

Last year I went on an overnight with the kids who were in that original group I had as a student teacher. That was great! It’s always a treat to spend time with them. (And yes, I still feel that way after going on 3 overnights with that group! Including that time we slept on the floor of the Central Park Zoo!)

One great thing about staying at a school for a while is that you get to see the same kids around. The kids I had last year are all on the other side of the hallway, but it’s fun to see them around. In fact a number of them are in my theater production, so I get to see them once a week. They, too, have grown so much!

I’m going to go get some sleep tonight so that I can be up at who-knows-when tomorrow morning. See you on the flip side!

I’ve been spending the weekend working on a travel book about my experiences with Earthwatch on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. I’ll be posting some excerpts from that soon… stay tuned!

So it turns out I’m not going to be seeing Star Wars Episode III (Revenge of the Prequels) on opening weekend, because I’ll be on an overnight field trip with my class. Reviewers are saying it’s better than Episode II, not that that’s hard. So I hope nobody spoils the ending for me.

(That was a joke, by the way. I know how it ends. I was one of those annoying geeks who went, “Oh… so THAT’s Palpatine” when they introduced him in Episode I. As if you couldn’t tell it’s the same guy. And if you couldn’t, you deserved to have me ruin it for you just now.)

My Star Wars expertise is highly useful as a classroom teacher. I’m constantly breaking up arguments. “Obi-Won’s going to die in this one!” “No he isn’t!” “Yes he is!” “No! He died in Episode I!” And then I have to cut in with, “Excuse me. You’re thinking of Qui Gon, and you? You’re just wrong. He dies in Episode IV, remember? And then becomes a voiceover? And then becomes a glowing Jedi spirit kinda thing? Now go do your worksheets!”

Whatever happened to Qui Gon, anyway? No voiceovers? No glowing Jedi spiritness? Never mentioned by Obi Won again? Something was up with that guy.

In case you’re wondering, I first saw Star Wars in the womb, which obviously explains a few things. Look for my review on May 21st, which will be my first opportunity to see the thing. Sheesh.

This explains a few things…

I was taking the bus uptown this evening, thinking it was taking an awfully long time, when I saw a large number of police vehicles, ambulances, and bulldozers heading uptown. “Why bulldozers?” I wondered. A number of scenarios crossed my mind — something happening at the bus station or on the George Washington Bridge — but not the one that actually occurred, which was a wall of the Henry Hudson Parkway collapsing. It took me forever to get uptown, but I figured it was just normal rush hour traffic. Oh well.

Apparently Democrats can’t be Christians… You won’t see me rant here about politics very often, but this irritated me to my core. It wasn’t enough for the pastor of a Baptist church in North Carolina to make his political views known or to use his position as a church leader to campaign on behalf of a certain candidate for President. No, he went ahead and had nine members of his church “voted out”. (Sounds like an episode of Survivor. Guess which tribe won the immunity prize?)

I thought the whole point of an election in a “free country” was to have an opportunity to choose. Yet it seems that people are becoming less tolerant of those who dare to make a different choice, to the point of being outraged that anyone would even consider it. (Consider Zell Miller during the Republican convention — How dare anyone challenge the President during wartime? Because, you know, we shouldn’t have elections during wartime. Or any “state of emergency”. Or ever…) During and after the election, I’ve been repeatedly worried about reports that people were fired from their jobs, escorted from rallies, and now ex-communicated from their church, all for the apparently inexcusable sin of supporting President Bush’s opponent in the 2004 election. It sounds suspiciously like intimidation and repression of political thought.

If we are really serious about spreading democracy and freedom around the world, we’d better start in our own backyard. Because some Americans haven’t gotten the memo.

Also, if we didn’t already have enough reasons to support the separation of church and state, here’s another — having the “wrong” political position can be detrimental to your spiritual future with your church. And not only that, but the church itself is in serious danger of becoming a distinctively un-spiritual place.

Yes, the weekend has arrived. It could be allergy season, it could be the length of time we’ve gone without a vacation, it could be the impending end of the school year — but my kids, my co-workers and I are all highly appreciative that another weekend has arrived.

Evidence that the odd spring weather has made us all a little dotty: my class has become obsessed — no, OBSESSED — with the Numa Numa Dance. (They originally discovered the American “Idle” version. And they don’t just watch the video, either. They sing and dance to it, very enthusiastically. In fact yesterday afternoon, after I made them turn it off, a group of them started singing it so convincingly that another child turned to me and barked, “I thought you were going to ask them to shut it!”

They also asked the music teacher if we could do the Numa Numa dance for Grandparents Day.

The impressive part is that they’ve all learned the words, which are in Romanian. Some curriculum group could pay that guy a nice fortune to make more videos, and pretty soon they’d be able to pass the AP exam…

Although I groan and grumble about the ubiquitous Numa Numa dancing (my co-worker told her math group that they’d earn an extra worksheet for homework every time they sang it in class) it’s better than their previous obsession, which was the Meow Mix song. For that, I blame Austin Powers.

The Hank Zipzer Series is particularly suitable for children who have experienced school troubles, but appropriate for 8-12 year olds in general. I’ve read several from the series to my class, and they can’t get enough of them. There’s just enough silliness and humor to keep them interested, and they totally identify with a main character who reads numbers backwards and can’t spell to save his life.

Holes is an excellent book that I’ve discussed here before. Just thought I’d mention it again. It has a sophisticated yet simple and beautiful storyline, but also manages to be gritty — sort of like “magic realism” for a younger reader.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may be a motion picture starring Gene Wilder (and soon, Johnny Depp) but it’s also one of my all time favorite children’s stories. (I’m also producing it as a musical at school… it’s a wonder I’m not sick of it yet.) I’m always moved when the starving Bucket family gets a reprieve from the chocolate factory owner. And kids absolutely love it when the mean, nasty, spoiled “winners” of the Golden Ticket get their comeuppance!

There are so many books I could mention… I’ll have to come back to this topic again soon.