where my thoughts escape me

I will be celebrating Christmas Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in Hixson, Adairsville, Signal Mountain, and Dalton. There will be more food than I could or should eat, but I will have a go at it. I have gained two brothers, a sister, a nephew, two grandparents, an aunt, an uncle, and countless cousins this go around. Both home and family are fickle concepts. I now split my time between three "homes" when I come back, and I think that some people from my "home" church thought I was breaking in when I showed up late for caroling the other night. All that said, I have had a good time being back in Chattanooga and I miss all that waits for me here, as well as that which does not.
Merry Christmas

desesperación, es mas facíl llegar al sol que a... wednesday

Seven hours until my last exam of the week. This has been the craziest three weeks of my life.
ooeeeooo.

Texture and Taste

Can the words texture and taste be applied to life? I would not like to carry that metaphor any further than saying that I want life to be interesting. I have not decided whether it is my past experiences, some kind of pre-wiring, or current environmental factors which make me the way that I am right now, but of all my motivations and goals in life I ask the question, "But will I be interested, or interesting? Will life have a texture and taste to it that pushes me along?"
More than most influences, that is probably what motivates me to make many of the decisions that I make. I get bored easily. Middle school and high school were that way. I was absent up to thirty days a year sometimes because I disliked school because I was bored there. Nobody ever taught on anything that was interesting to me. It did not have texture and taste. That is the reason that I sometimes seem to be making decisions at random I suppose. My minor decisions in life seem grand to me because they are chances to try new textures and tastes. I stay awake at night thinking of what I will do the next day that I have never done before. I worry about common things because they seem boring and I never take time to learn about them.
I cannot say that this is the best way to make decisions, but I can say that it probably has something to do with most of my decisions. I long for normalcy and stability, but can never really enjoy it. My decisions work towards and against that longing, in a way that often seems arbitrary.
A little bit of introspection, not well thought out, but even so. I am making little decisions that will lead to big decisions about my future and all of this has a part to play I am sure. What we do now makes who we will be tomorrow right? Not that our personality is the sum of our habits, but they have some part to play. All that to say, I am very bored.

a note from a friend and a plan for the evening

So I received an email from a dear friend that really brightened my day. I wish more people could be as creative in their chiding. I laughed a lot when I read this. I'm not sure that the final conclusion that is made is exactly correct, but it does not take away from the power of the note.

"John,
I think someone needs to put it to you straight.
Maybe they already have and I'm too late... :)
But you need to set a better schedule for yourself..eh?
Imagine this scenario:
Some guy spends four years of his life, (okay maybe not all four) but a LARGE amount of his life
staying up late nights, sometimes all night, finishing stuff he didn't do during the day...and then is a zombie during the daylight hours because of lack of sleep. He lives off of the small life that caffeine in coffee and other drinks provide.
He doesn't take advice from his good friend, or friends, when they tell him he really should plan better. He either procrastinates too much or he does too many things for other people and doesn't have enough time to study, thus the late night schedule.
And he graduates in '09, and completely falls apart because he's not used to a normal life schedule.
He decides that the only way he can be sane is to live in the way he has in the past four years.
But he realizes only too late...:) that his life style and sleeping habits have cause his body to want to stay up all night.He fails his job and decides the only place he can work is the train station where he can stay up late hours around the clock.
He is disappointed and discouraged.
WHO might he be??"

But really, who is to say that I would not enjoy the train station. I love my friends. At least if I realized it that late I would be able to work for change... because I work best late. (drum drum cymbal)

I finished all of my work this afternoon save for a couple of pages for education, so I am going to go get dinner and eat with my roommates. It is our last hurrah for the year. My roommate Josh is heading to Istanbul in the spring to study Byzantine history. He will be missed. The rest of us are about to enter into some of our busiest semesters yet so we will be dearly missed. So, to celebrate our last time together for a while we will eat wild wings and watch no country for old men. It is based on a book by one of Josh's favorite modern writers so that is fitting considering the circumstances.

Christmas Blend

Stimulus- Paper started
Response- Drink coffee

rings as clearly as a bell, but maybe it is the other way around and I just want the consequences of the response so I just hit the stimulus up... Unsure.

So, in five hours I will take my last class of the semester. I have one final on Wed. and a bunch of papers to finish for next week and then I am done. I check people out of their rooms until Sunday then I go home, spend sixteen or seventeen days there and head back to Jackson for the new year.

I checked out a couple of books today and was allowed to keep them until January. That made me happy. I will have something to read while I am home.
One day soon I will stop using this to ramble as I wait for the dawn after pulling an all-nighter. One day soon I will not pull an all-nighter.

The End of an Era

After a never ending hardly sleeping week and a half, I think that I may be ready to revise and rest my cold away. I have all except an introduction and conclusion for the major papers that I have been working on and have all but a couple of journals finished for my education class. One of my classes ended yesterday and no more work will be needed for it. I still have four practicum hours to pick up somewhere in the next three days. Hopefully a teacher will be gracious to me and allow me to sit in on their class. This was my finals week. Official finals week my only exam will be in Arts in Western Civ.
Such an intense couple of weeks has convinced me that my writing is nowhere near where it needs to be. My research skills are a little lower. My ability to make clear arguments is lacking, at best (although I must admit that three in the morning should not be my time that I make these arguments).
I always feel like I have missed out on something academically somewhere along the way and I am trying to backtrack and reclaim it.

Stationery Threats

So while I was doing some work related to that conference I went to, I noticed a sheetpad of stationery that fell out of one of my notebooks. It says, "Monolingualism Can be Cured." This alongside an asymmetrical pen that says, "TENNESSEE FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING ASSOCIATION: The World Is Multi Lingual Become Bilingual NOW".
I wonder whether I am the only person who thinks that these mantras sound hostile and perhaps even violent.
On a side note, tonight I finished a forty contact hour curriculum project that has consumed me for days and I can start on everything else that has to be finished before I go home.

Reflections on TFLTA Conference

So, I went to the Tennessee Foreign Language Teaching Association conference last month and I got some interesting ideas from teachers and a free bag that looks too much like a purse to use. There weren't any sessions for ESL teachers which was a downer, but I was able to attend most of the Spanish sessions and they were somewhat helpful.
Almost immediately as I walked into the conference area I was struck by how weird and awkward some language teachers can be. I mean, a lot of times I could spot a French teacher from three miles away by their clipped up hair and look of disdain for anything that moves and doesn't parlez francais. This is not to say that Spanish teachers fared much better. Wearing their ponchos and trying to speak Spanish to every Spanish speaking hotel worker was not a very clever disguise. I have to say that the only teachers I could not pick out were the German teachers (does Tennessee even know that German is a language?) and the Latin teachers who were surely debating correct verb conjugations in some poorly lit back room.
Cold coffee and stale doughnuts was our lot as we made our way through curriculum tables where peddlers tried to sell their wares. There was a look of urgency and desperation in their eyes which their false festivity could not hide. My best guess is that they were paid on commission to some degree and conferences like these were their cash crop. I do not know whether it is a stodgy individualist streak that I have or whether I truly believe I can do better, but I think that if I teach I would like to design my curriculum as I go. Perhaps that is what motivated me or maybe it was my lack of mad money that made me steer away from those tables as much as possible. Plus, I will be an ESL or EFL teacher and we all know how well funded they are. My curriculum will probably be some dusty old book from the 20's. "Alright class, let's translate the next sentence about Sally Joe and Billy at the speakeasy. Gee-golly wiz, that hooch sure is the bee's knees!"
Sadly the main difference in most of the sessions was the socioeconomic status of the students in the classes of the presenting teachers. The sessions ranged from a couple of public school teachers' ideas for using items from Dollar Stores in the classroom to an all girls Catholic school AP Spanish teacher's ideas for using authentic texts in preparation for reading exercises on the AP test. The flyswatter vocabulary game vs. meaningfully interacting with a real world news article. Dollar store items vs. a computer in the hands of every student. I would have loved to be in the Spanish class of the AP teacher who only used Spanish with her students and would make them translate in correspondance with their parents. That is a little more interesting than swatting the correct vocabulary word from the board.
I will probably never have the opportunity to teach in a setting where I will have much more funding than the dollar store teachers. I hear the stories of ESL classes held in janitorial closets taught by teachers who travel to eleven different schools a day for thirty minutes a piece and I wonder whether I could ever put up with teaching in the state of Tennessee.
Perhaps I should start buying flyswatters now.

Halfway through

I am a little over halfway through with everything that I need to get done with finals. I had a bad headache today from lack of sleep. Trying to get all the coffee out of my system and try to get ready for another week. I woke up at 12:30 today and worked from 1-2. The whole time I had a pounding headache. Went to sleep at 2 and slept until 8. Going to try to get back on a normal schedule for the next week and get things done. It was a one day week, one long day.

Yesterday is Today is Tomorrow

All of my days are blending together. Just got back from a write-a-thon. two response papers, three journal entries, and 6 out of ten pages that is quickly turning into more because covered 2/6th of the material which is 1/3rd in the not sleepy circles. Tonight/tomorrow which is today I will write a rough draft for a curriculum plan which will be another good bit of pages along with a not so academic paper for theater (joke) which will be 2 or 3. Followed by many more journal entries (behind by like 20), finishing the ten/twenty page mug, drinking lots of coffee, reading some chapters of textbook, finishing Christmas light set up for building, going to the grand lighting, and a merry Christmas. Over a couple of days life suddenly got busy.
All of that not so good at 6:30 in the morning, maybe later yesterday/today/tomorrow delete.

Coffee, Coke, and Skittles

At times I feel that I am always on the verge of another pointless all-nighter. I am no longer acting out of necessity. I just can't work well at any other time. Now, in the darkness, the campus is dead, and I am buzzing on coffee, coke, and skittles while writing my papers and reading my books. The laundry room is empty and I leave my laundry running in the free dryer for hours on end in my forgetfulness. I have to get off of this schedule and work towards normalcy and a better work ethic, but why do I argue myself so quickly out of something that I enjoy. I like it when the world disappears and I can work. I am too busy with so many things and I am missing out on studying what I want to. That is why I carve out these chunks of time from one o'clock to seven in the morning where I am not bothered and the world is quiet. I sit back with a cup of coffee and read the night away.
I am so unhealthy.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

I have been given the opportunity to do a rewarding and informative (for me at least) project that could shape the next year and a half of my schooling. Next semester I have to do a language teaching experience somewhere in the community. Over January I plan to find a church that has an ESL program and start teaching there. While there, I want to do a case study on the way in which the Christian faith of those in the program interacts with the teaching of English and the extent to which this interaction affects teachers' decisions. After that, if I can get it cleared through the human research board on campus then I will do a fall '08 system wide study about faith based language teaching initiatives covering issues like pedagogy and curriculum choices and teacher attitude towards learners. Then, in the spring for my senior ESL project I could do a practical project like a program pitch for a church desiring to start an ESL program, training for those wanting to teach in a church or faith-based setting, etc...
These thoughts come at the end of a year and a half of disinterest and apathy in my studies so I hope that it motivates me to work harder because I am so interested in the subject. I am starting to embrace the ESL and app. ling. side of things.
World travel, reading, and writing... sounds swell.

conformity?

Can a Christian fight for rights and revolt against injustice? Governments are put in place by God. God is sovereign and His will is perfect. There are purposes behind the way countries are run and manipulated in this world. Can a Christian critically examine their world, see injustice, and work for revolution? If a puppet government exploits the resources of a nation, mistreats its people, and swells the pockets of the rich do the Christian citizens of that nation work within the system for change or do they work to topple or completely rework the system? What sorts of actions are appropriate for Christians to take and what do they fight for? This physical world is not our home or the ultimate ; the spiritual is our home and is ultimate. But does that mean that we leave the poor, the oppressed, and the enslaved members of this world to their fates because we see that to be their lot?
I am thankful for the blessings that I have in my life, but I live a pretty coddled life in a part of the world that is hated for the way that it treats others. The United States is full of inequality and I would be lying to say that I am not on the top as a white middle class Christian who will soon be a college grad. Inside and outside there is need for change. Do we sometimes argue ourselves out of positive societal change because we believe so fiercely in the sovereignty of God (to the point of defacing it)? Maybe this is only something I struggle with. I've had one person come up to me and tell me they were upset with the way that sovereignty is emphasized to the point of minimizing merciful action in a hurting world. I wonder if this is more widespread in reformed circles. I have been mulling all of this over in my head over the weekend and it did not come out as I thought it would. Toned down, maybe?
I know that we are not building a physical or political world, but I guess my main decision to make in my thoughts is whether or not Christians should violently act for political changes if it brings about social justice, equality, and freedom (in a non-Bush sense of the word).

Christian Academic Rationalism

I have never understood the intention of those who choose to enroll their children in a Latin class over a Spanish class. I may take a step farther and say that I do not understand the intention of those, in this context, who choose to enroll their children in a French or German class over a Spanish class, but at least some of them may have the excuse of a German or French lineage. I have yet to meet a Roman. On the other hand, I have met many Spanish speakers who would probably love to meet a couple more WASPs who could speak their language. Instead, white mid-upper class Christians are pushing classical education as the Christian alternative and are raising up generations of students who can read Cicero but are unable to communicate with their neighbor or the boy at school who has few friends because he can't speak English.
What great service does this provide? Well, our young Latin scholars may score higher on the SAT because they know root words. Then they can get in a better college. Then they can make lots of money. Then they can boss around their neighbor and the child from school. Then they can pay thousands of dollars to go on a "missions" trip to a country where they can't speak the language and make comments about how blessed they are and how poor the country is (nice hotels though). Then they can feel better about all of their life decisions.

Spanish is not the only choice, but it makes a lot of sense in our context. Latin is the shibboleth of the elite deceptively passed off as a way of embracing the rich history and culture of a long dead and over glorified society. Classical education in the area is a faintly disguised form of academic rationalism with a Christian spin when it comes to language teaching. Perhaps people might believe that we care if we put a little more effort into learning their language and a little less effort into improving our standardized test scores.

Teaching Bullom So as a Second Language

I have been hired to teach Bullom So as a second language. My language is spoken by only five hundred speakers in Sierre Leone, has no imperialistic or hegemonic claims on the region, has not been used for colonization, does not bring about any difficult moral dilemmas in my heart, will likely be extinct by the end of a couple of decades, and I don't get sick at the thought of the impact that it will have on those who learn it. My work brings life, not death. It invigorates a community and brings joy to those who know that their heritage and heart language will not be lost as the younger generation accepts the new and rejects the old. I am a righteous agent of positive change for a community. My work could bring about a cultural renaissance for my community. I picture a world where Bullom So poets are included in native language anthologies in Bullom So universities, where our artists tour the art galleries of the world and speak of our rich cultural heritage, and where our community teems with life and beauty and love.
But none of that is true, is it?
-The future smoking gun of language death