Letters from Lisa

My family and I went skiing in the Poconos yesterday… I have to admit, despite having successfully learned to ski earlier this year, I was very nervous about it. But I shouldn’t have been. Skiing is like riding a bicycle, in that once you learn how, you really don’t forget. Also, if you fall, it hurts. Luckily I was falling on soft snow, so the only injuries I received were the multicolored bruiselike lumps on my lower legs. See, when you smack into your body at moderate-to-high velocity with big planks of fiberglass bolted to your feet, your blood vessels do a little display. It’s their way of thanking you.

Of course I only fell because
a) I am clumsy
b) my dad convinced me to go on an intermediate trail that turned out to be a terrain park with a very steep hill
c) then my dad convinced me to go on a different intermediate trail, that also turned out to be a terrain park with an even steeper hill
d) I do not learn from past mistakes, so I let my dad talk me into it
e) and then we went on a totally appropriate easy-intermediate hill, and in my zest to avoid hitting a stupid snowboarder, I crossed one ski over the other, and apparently when you’re skiing on your own ski instead of the snow, that’s bad
f) stupid snowboarders

Let’s blame it all on the snowboarders, ok?

It also didn’t help that when my dad and I were affixing our lift tickets to our coats, we didn’t look closely at the tags and I ended up wearing his. It said “Senior, ages 62-69″ on it. If that isn’t a commentary on my skiing abilities, I don’t know what is.

My dad kept saying that I was being too hard on myself. It’s true. I usually am. I mean, how could I expect, after only a few days of skiing back in March, that I would have remembered how to stay upright? The first few runs, I was quite panicked. It also didn’t help that the place was littered with young kids (some strapped into harnesses with their parents trailing behind them - they looked like little reindeer pulling puffy-coated Santas) and ski school groups, and of course stupid snowboarders. I’d learned to ski on fairly empty trails, and this was like target practice.

Eventually, of course, I got used to it. That’s when my dad convinced me to go on those trails with the steep hills. Despite the high pitched screams emanating from my throat as I descended into my icy hell, I have to admit, my technique had improved significantly since the morning. I only lost a ski once. Right after that, I decided that I was done for the morning.

After a midday break for some salty fries and chicken fingers and some very good hot chocolate, I was ready to go back out there. More hot chocolate probably would have helped. I think the ski lodge might have slipped some painkillers into that stuff. If not, they should consider it.

My afternoon was significantly better than the morning. My endorphins kicked in, my legs woke up, and we found an intermediate trail that did not have a sheer cliff to fall off. I quit for the day at about 1:30, after I’d done that trail 4-5 times without falling down, despite having to pass a whole graveyard’s worth of people sprawled out at the entrance to the trail every single time. Since it was located right at the end of an easy trail, some people apparently just kept going, thinking it was a continuation rather than a whole new trail. I felt bad for them. Mostly because, earlier that morning, I almost did the same thing. Once I got past the bodies, I was fine.

My dad continued to ski for a while, going on the advanced trails that I am too much of a klutz to attempt, and I sat in the lodge with a second cup of hot chocolate. That stuff is the BEST.

So here I am, sore and bruised and feeling rather smug about it. We’re going on a ski trip in February, and I’ll be ready. I’m sure my four days of skiing in Utah are going to be a lot of fun. I may even remember how to ski this time. And they’ll have hot chocolate there! I’d better hurry up and heal!

Yesterday I spent the morning watching the Daily Show’s InDecision 2004, the DVD compilation of the Presidential election coverage. Why now? Because I had put it off before. (And because I only got the DVD recently, as a holiday gift. Still. I’d put off even having it on my wish list until maybe a month ago.)

Yes, the girl who can spend the entire day looking up old Daily Show clips on YouTube (you may think they’re all gone, but they’re still there) actually avoided the real, legitimate, paid-for and nicely wrapped (until it was unwrapped) Daily Show DVD sitting right in her own house. Why? As much as I love the Daily Show, I had thought that it would be anger-provoking and high-blood-pressure-inducing to watch footage having anything to do with the 2004 Presidential elections. Just the five little syllables in “Swift Boat Veteran” used to be enough to get me sputtering. Do you guys remember that election? What a mess!

Well, I am pleased to report that I was able to watch the entire first DVD of InDecision 2004 without feeling angry, disaffected, or horrified about politics. Not once. The way it’s covered certainly helps, but you know what else helps? The fact that it’s no longer 2004. Or even 2005. No, it’s 2006, baby, and our country has woken up.

This year, things changed. I’m not even talking about the mid-term elections, though they can certainly be taken as evidence that things have changed (and that calling some guy “macaca” is really, really bad for your Presidential ambitions - if you were in any doubt about that). I’m talking about the fact that, five years after 9/11, people are finally comfortable questioning the wisdom of the President and the soundness of his policies. People are realizing that you can’t necessarily flip off all news about the wars we’re in, or the state of the world in general, just because Bush gets on TV and says, “Nope, everything’s fine, I’m the decider, just trust me.”

The fantasy of Bush as America’s warm, down to Earth, God-loving, firm, decisive proud paternalistic Leader-with-a-capital-L is over. He’s just a guy we elected (well, we sorta-elected him and then we actually elected him) and he’s only as good as the decisions he’s made. During the elections some of us derided him for not being able to speak English, for having no basic knowledge of world geography or cultures, for claiming that God spoke directly to him and helped him decide what to do (apparently God is an idiot). But now, six years into the Bush presidency, we can now simply say, like Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does, sir.” (Clinton/Gump ‘08?)

The simple fact that truthiness was the word of 2006 - and it was said in 2005 - says volumes. It also says we have to get with the program. Hasn’t Stephen Colbert made up any other funny words since October 2005? 2006 has been the year of catch-up. And also, celebrities.

And 2006 was a big year for me. I added another continent to the list of Continents I’ve Visited (current tally: 4, including the one I’m sitting on now). I went skiing for the first time, and soon, the second time. I changed job descriptions. I created planets. I watched a lot of Comedy Central. And I knit some hats and a scarf or two.

It was a big year for my family and friends too. This year we graduated from vet school, bought a house, got married, got engaged, and quit and found new jobs. Exciting stuff. Makes me sort of tired, thinking about it. So I’ll save the next entry for “Best and Worst of 2006″ and go take an early nap.

I don’t watch a whole lot of TV - and what I do watch is DVRed, hence I’m not really up on the latest commercials. (Unless they feature John Hodgman as a PC.) So today I was hanging out at home, watching Animal Planet - not DVRed - and I nearly fell over when an American Express commerical came on that featured an old Spinal Tap classic.

Apparently “Gimme Some Money” IS a marketable slogan. Who knew?

For those of you unfamiliar with the original source material, allow YouTube and me to enlighten you:

That’s from Spinal Tap, only THE best comedy movie of all time. (That isn’t Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Life of Brian, or Spaceballs.) Rent it, buy it, do whatever you have to do, but watch it, please.

And if American Express is looking for a song for its next commercial, may I suggest… maybe something not from Spinal Tap.

Every once in a while, I’ll be out somewhere and witness what we in the teaching field (at least those of us who have spent at least two years in graduate school writing “reflective essays”) call the Teachable Moment. I notice behavior that’s unsafe, untoward, or just plain rude, and before I can stop myself, I’m barking at the person in full Teacher Voice. As in:

Excuse Me. You Need To Stop That Right Now.

The first time it happened, I had an excuse - I was just leaving work, so I wasn’t really out of Teacher Mode yet, and I saw these two kids dangling from the traffic light on the corner. Now normally I don’t yell at random kids on the street, but seriously - scaling a traffic light? That’s just not going to end well. Teacher Voice came out: Excuse Me. That Is Unsafe. Get Down Right Now. Thank You. They were so startled at being ordered down to the sidewalk that they complied - and didn’t yell anything back at me until I was well down the street. (And for the record, it was, “You’re welcome!”)

A few months later, it happened again. This time I was in Ecuador, visiting a conservation park that featured rare and injured birds of prey. I was busy listening to my tour guide shooting the breeze with another tour guide (neither realized I understood what they were saying until after they’d already joked about how “hot” I was) when my Spanish lesson was interrupted when the guy running the show asked for kid volunteers to let the birds land on them. He called on some little snot in the audience who’d been part of a large group of noisy, obnoxious kids (they were French, not American - nice to see that we’re not the only ones who can be “ugly” when they travel!) and the kid jumped right up on the wall and walked across. Before I knew it, Teacher Voice jumped out again. Don’t Walk On The Wall. That’s Rude. The tour guides started laughing, and I started rapidly thinking about how to say that in French in case the kid hadn’t understood. Of course, he had.

Well, honestly, I haven’t had to use my Teacher Voice much recently. The kids I work with are incredibly respectful and well-behaved, and not very big on climbing walls or traffic lights. When I do have to get stern, I don’t have to say very much beyond the kid’s name or a simple Stop. And I’ve not been out in public places where anything needs to be said. Until tonight. I guess it needed to happen sometime.

What happened was this. Tonight I was out at the movies with my dad. We saw Dreamgirls - pretty good. During the closing credits, though, an argument broke out in the row right in front of us. I’m not sure exactly what started it. From what I could tell, there was a lady sitting down with her legs crossed who didn’t want to move to allow a younger girl and her boyfriend to walk in front of her. She wanted to watch the closing credits and told them to walk out the other way. This apparently bothered the teen girl, who started yelling at her, calling her the b word, insulted her for going to the movies alone, etc. The seated woman yelled back at her, and then the teenage girl started to shove. Why this issue was worth starting a physical altercation over is beyond me. Anyway, what I do know is that my Teacher Voice suddenly came out:

Excuse Me. Hey! Knock It Off. Right Now. I’m Calling The Manager. You Need To Leave.

Eventually the girl and her boyfriend left, with the girl still hurling insults over her shoulder and the woman sitting there, still watching the credits. I don’t know whether I really had any effect on the argument at all, but I guess I just needed to say something. I wouldn’t have gotten involved if it had been dangerous. No, this was just stupid. The girl was so immature that she actually bragged about being 18 years old, as if that proved how much of a grown-up she was. So I guess the teacher in me was trying to scold her into backing down from doing something that she was definitely going to regret. I also think that the older lady, who never once moved from her chair, probably could have knocked her out cold. Once the credits were over of course.

(Say what you will about the geeks and nerds who love Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. but at least we don’t get into fights when we go to the movies. Like the Dreamgirls crowd apparently does. Sheesh!)

Anyway, the Teacher Voice has receded back into the abyss, to emerge again - when? Who knows. Whenever there are traffic light climbers or stone wall walkers or people who walk in front of other people during the closing credits, Lisa’s Teacher Voice will be there…

Four examples of discrimination, all in a single news day.

Stricter rules for adopting a child from China

This bothers me - enormously. The new restrictions brim with prejudice across the board - requiring couples to be married for a certain number of years (five years if it’s a remarriage), delving into parents’ medical histories, rejecting people who are overweight. The last one is especially egregious. I have yet to see any study that in any way correlates parenting skill and positive outcomes for children with the weight of the parents. The argument is that parents need to be healthy so that they can provide a more stable, secure, and long-lasting home for the kids. By that logic, we should just require all parents to submit to genetic testing, to weed out those who have genetic markers for heart disease, diabetes, cancer, mental illness, learning disabilies, and any other “evil” that one can think of. In fact, any parent who is at any risk of dying should refrain from raising children. Oh, wait - that would eliminate all humans. Hmm. Well, in that case, if you wear a size 6 or under, you’re OK with the Chinese government.

This policy raises a basic question - who deserves to be a parent? As it stands now, anyone with the biological means can become a parent, regardless of their health or financial situation or skills in parenting. It’s only people who are infertile, gay, single, or ethically committed to adoption who have to answer to the Parenting Police. It makes me angry when I see news story after news story about children who have been neglected, abused, murdered, or put in orphanages for being female (hmm, looking at you, China) and then I think about all of the people who sincerely want to adopt, for the right reasons, and are told they can’t because of irrelevant factors like how fat they are.

Then there’s my own personal case. I’ve pretty much decided that, if I am not fortunate enough to find a partner to have a family with, I am going to go ahead and have a child on my own. Adoption would certainly be an option for me. Or maybe not. As a single woman, I am now ineligible to adopt from China (not that I’d be able to afford it anyway). Apparently my lack of success in finding a husband also makes it likely that I’d be a bad parent. Aren’t we done with the days where women are judged based on whether they can please a man? Apparently not - apparently I am not worth anything unless someone decides I’m worth marrying. It disgusts me.

And what disgusts me even more is the fact that I personally know women who are raising adopted or biological children on their own, and are doing a fantastic job, and I know that there are now children sitting in state-run institutions who will be denied the opportunity to benefit from that sort of love. In the end, people like me will just adopt from elsewhere.

Well, I do have one thing in my favor - I speak and read English. So at least no one will suspect me of being a terrorist. But some Americans seem to think that anything written in Arabic is automatically suspicious: A tolerance campaign in Virginia leaves some unsettled

The example that struck me was the “well-educated” woman who insisted that the Arabic on the campaign’s sign was a “secret message”, despite assurances from the makers of the sign (and the presence of an English translation right on the sign). She wanted to call the FBI.

Then there was this front page story in the New York Times about the difficulties of diabetes in the workplace: Diabetics in the workplace confront a tangle of laws This frankly scared me. It scared me because:

1. With an increasing number of Americans being overweight, the incidence of diabetes is growing dramatically - so more and more people are going to run into discrimination and even losing their jobs unless this is settled somehow.

2. This portends extremely ill for anyone with any medical or psychological condition - if people can get freaked out over diabetes, a common and treatable chronic medical condition, they how are they going to treat someone with Asperger’s, Tourettes, epilepsy, cancer, HIV, or brain injury? As people live longer and learn to manage illnesses that in past generations were fatal or debilitating, the workplace is either going to keep up, or we are going to end up with a huge number of people who can’t support themselves. What a waste. What a colossal waste.

And finally, to prove that employers can have it as bad as employees: Nanny hunt can be a “slap in the face” for blacks

This article discusses the difficulties that middle-class African-American families have in finding nannies willing to work for them. Proof if you needed it that race IS a factor in how people are treated in this country. It’s not just about the money.

This entry ended up being pretty depressing. Sorry.

Jesus’ wish list on Amazon.com

found via Comedy Central’s insider blog.

I was waiting for an A train last night when I was approached by this random guy. Now this is the New York subway system - strangers generally don’t speak or interact except to apologize for bumping into someone or admiring a dog or baby. If a stranger comes up to you and starts talking, that person is more than likely asking for money, selling something, preaching, or mentally ill. This guy wasn’t any of those, I don’t think, but my defenses went up anyway, especially after I started very obviously trying to read my book and he contined to talk. And then he started asking me if I was married or had any children.

“Notice I said ‘or’ have any kids,” he chortled, apparently reveling in his own open-mindedness, “because this is America, you see, so you don’t have to be married to have children anymore.”

“No,” I mumbled, not looking up from page 87, “people do whatever they want.”

“In my country,” he went on, ” a woman who had children but no marriage would be taken out and shot!”

“I’m glad I live here, then.”

On a different note… still no Cosmo yet. I don’t have much hope left that we are going to find him alive.

We’re out for winter break as of 12:00 today, so yesterday I brought home the science room’s crayfish, Cosmo, to stay at my apartment. Cosmo was a chance acquisition, since another teacher had bought several crayfish for her classroom and found that they tended to fight one another. In fact, there had been a third crayfish who’d already died in the carnage. So Cosmo was exiled down to the science room to avoid any more crustacean combat. He’s only a few inches long and has the comical habit of displaying at anything nearby, which makes him look like Molly Shannon in Superstar.

Honestly, he isn’t all that interesting as a pet, and we don’t know if he’s actually been eating, and all he ever does is sit under the little rock in his tank (when he’s not displaying at us for coming too close). My tortoise, Lucky Jr., is way more active and mobile.

Despite the fact that all Cosmo does is sit around and hide, I knew we couldn’t just leave him at school over the whole winter break. So I put him in a little tupperware to go on the subway, then transferred him to a larger container when I got home. We thought about putting a lid on the tank, since it was more shallow than his usual home, but in the end decided to just leave him with his rock and water and let it be.

Well. This morning we discovered that he was gone.

And I mean gone. Not in the tank. Not on the table. Not on the chairs around the table. Not on the floor. Not underneath the couch. We literally cannot find this stupid little thing. I say “stupid” because there is no way he can survive long if we don’t find him soon. On the other hand, three grown people have practically ransacked the house, and he’s still AWOL.

Cosmo: 1
Humans: 0

My dad has rightfully pointed out that this is not a laughing matter, but I can’t help imagining him scurrying around on our wood floor flashing his claws at dust bunnies to the tune of the James Bond theme song.

Enough’s enough, Cosmo. Your water bowl is out and waiting. Won’t you come home?

Maps of War: History of the Middle East in 90 Seconds

This animation puts it all into perspective. Seriously.

According to a new study, 95% of Americans have had premarital sex.

That number got my attention at first, but then there was this little tidbit buried halfway down, as the administration defended its abstinence-only curriculum in the face of evidence that just about nobody ever practices abstinence:

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, defended the abstinence-only approach for teenagers.

“One of its values is to help young people delay the onset of sexual activity,” he said. “The longer one delays, the fewer lifetime sex partners they have, and the less the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease.”

He insisted there was no federal mission against premarital sex among adults.

“Absolutely not,” Horn said. “The Bush administration does not believe the government should be regulating or stigmatizing the behavior of adults.”

I’m still so completely bowled over that someone actually said that, about the BUSH administration, that I think I need to see it again:

The Bush administration does not believe the government should be regulating or stigmatizing the behavior of adults.

Well, of course, silly Lisa. Bush is a conservative. Conservatives believe that private behavior between consenting adults is nobody’s business. Right?

What an insult to our intelligence. Don’t tell people what to think and then deny that you’re doing it. You ran as an evangelical, counting on “moral” issues like gay marriage and abortion to get you into power. You were voted in by all of the people who want adult behavior to be as regulated and stigmatized as possible. Now you’re telling us that you don’t want to regulate or stigmatize the behavior of adults?

There really must be global warming, because this administration apparently decided to shed some of its bulky outer layers and slap on a big shiny new pair of FLIP FLOPS.

Make your own snowflake.

This is a total time waster. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I went to my knitting meetup’s holiday party yesterday afternoon and walked away with a homemade felted COFFEE CUP HOLDER.


Call it karma, call it synchronicity, call it what you want. I call it… grande.

A new education system altogether?

Among the recommendations in this report are allowing kids to accelerate out of the system and into college early by passing a board exam, and providing continuing education to adults who don’t pass high school requirements.

For more: TIME Magazine article

One of the things I find interesting about this is the notion that the sole purpose of education is to prepare kids for a competitive workplace. I’m all for giving people the tools to perform and compete, but on some level it rankles me that learning is looked at in this way. Isn’t there any other reason to learn? With such a mindset, could we justify allowing a child to pursue an interest or subject that isn’t directly applicable to his or her future workplace?

… you thank goodness it’s almost Friday, then realize it IS Friday, and has been Friday ALL DAY.
… your brain keeps looping back to that dumb Peanut Butter Jelly Time song.
… you start thinking that your silly puns, like the science experiment that you called Peel or No Peel, are actually funny.
… you wear headphones while working for an hour, then realize that the music has been off for at least 45 minutes.
… you find yourself spending way too much time in front of the computer trying to find the mp3 for Peanut Butter Jelly Time.
… you try to rewind a DVD.

Time for bed? Yes, I think so.

This is the fifth anniversary of elementary school musical theater, and as such I wanted to make it particularly special. So instead of adapting an existing show or a children’s book, we are putting together a show in collaboration with the kids. Yes, all 38 of them.

Part of the show consists of acting out computer game levels (inspired in part by this re-enactment of Super Mario Brothers) and so of course we had to choose music. At first I was thinking classical, like the old Warner Brothers cartoons, and then I was thinking a MIDI of a classical piece in order to make it sound more computer generated… and THEN I found the Nintendo MIDI page!

This made me nostalgic, and I didn’t even HAVE Nintendo as a kid!

Truthiness was named Word of the Year, according to a poll by dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.

It’s a testament to the power of Stephen Colbert that his “word of the year” according to Merriam-Webster isn’t actually a word IN Merriam-Webster. Try it.

As for the response to this latest honor?

“Though I’m no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas, I am a fan of anyone who chooses to honor me,” he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

“And what an honor,” he said. “Truthiness now joins the lexicographical pantheon with words like ’squash,’ ‘merry,’ ‘crumpet,’ ‘the,’ ‘xylophone,’ ‘circuitous,’ ‘others’ and others.”

Note to anyone interested in getting me holiday presents: the Colbert Report tapes right in New York City, the tickets don’t cost anything, and I’ve been a VERY good girl this year.

Meanwhile, looks like dictionary.com is having a poll about the same thing. Hmmmmm.

UPDATE: Is your dictionary missing the word truthiness? Simply upload the updated page here, apply a bit of glue, and presto!

UPDATED UPDATE! The results are in from the Dictionary.com poll! Looks to me like the folks at dictionary.com got Col-bombed! The top word was truthiness, followed by lincolnish, Wikiality, it-getter, grinchitude, factinista, and superstantial.

Rounding out the top ten were love, sex, and defenestrate. Apparentlly all of the 10 year olds I know participated in the poll, too, which explains why the next top entry was antidisestablishmentarianism, and all of the 8 year olds who can type long words or have very patient parents voted for #12, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

For whatever reason, this wouldn’t format properly in my sidebar. Nevertheless, a fun toy.

Type in any keyword (for example, black holes) and this widget will search my library list on LibraryThing for books about that topic.

Rate your favorite science myths!

They mention my favorite pseudoscientific pet peeve: when people think that you use only 10% of your brain. Insert your own political joke here.

Hey liberals! If you’re not sure just how to go about waging your heathen commie satanist War on Christmas, might I suggest that you consult the manual.

Don’t miss the dedication to Fox News.

Via I Speak Of Dreams.

I could probably pretend that this came from one of those list-memes that people fill out on their blogs and send to each other… but it isn’t. I’m just in a list making mood.

Best website ever…. Planet 10. I finally made a planet suitable for supporting life!
Musical phrase that best describes me…. White and Nerdy.
Burning question…. Was Rumsfeld actually fired because he suggested changing course in Iraq, and not because of the midterm elections?
Color I’d like my bridesmaid’s dress to be, in case my sister is reading this…. Black or gray. That way it’ll be easier to find shoes.
On my to-do list…. Cash a check, apply for permanent teacher certification, clean out my tortoise’s tank, get my hair cut.
Things I feel most guilty about…. Knitting about 18 stitches of a sweater, and then getting distracted. Not running in weeks. Oh, and I have two emails sitting in my inbox that I haven’t returned, and I cringe every time I check my email and see them there.
Most disturbing book I’ve read recently…. Overachievers, by Alexandra Robbins. Brought back all kinds of horrible memories of stressing out about applying to colleges. Made me feel like a freedom fighter for not retaking my SATs.
New DVD on repeat…. Strangers With Candy. I bought it last night on sale and watched it three times today. OK, once was with the commentary on. But still.
Previous DVD on repeat…. Pride and Prejudice. Man, my taste varies.
Cups of coffee today…. 3. Or maybe 4. If you count the decaf one, 5.
In my cup right now…. Snapple Apple.
Shirt says…. I’m The Bad Witch. It was my Halloween costume.
Am I the bad witch?…. Wouldn’t you like to know.