Chicanery

chicanery: (noun) deception by artful subterfuge or sophistry; actions or statements that trick people into believing something that is not true.

          The number of students who resort to chicanery rather than do honest work is incredible.

I've been battling with plagiarists today. That's all I'm going to say. We're trying to keep this a family show.

Lugubrious

lugubrious:(adjective) exaggeratedly or affectedly mournful; dismal

                Traversing Nevada’s lugubrious landscape tends to lull me to sleep.

                As a senior at Mascoutah Community High School I took five semesters of English: AP Literature (2 semesters), Advanced Communications, Creative Writing, and Detective Fiction. When I registered for school that summer, the counselor had wanted to place me in honors physics and calculus (based on my past course work), but my math ACT score guaranteed that I didn’t need any more arithmetic training, and science and I didn’t get along very well, so I told her where to put those classes since I already knew what I wanted to do with my life. Granted, she wasn’t very helpful with finding scholarships after that.

                Needless to say, that year I read multifarious literature, and a disproportionate amount was dark and brooding—some by choice, others (like Ethan Frome) not. The first mystery we read in Detective Fiction was “The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)” by Edgar Allan Poe, considered by some to be the first true detective story. I’m not sure if it was in that story, or one of the other stories involving brilliant investigators and their involvement in the lugubrious details of the dregs of criminality, but I came across the word lugubrious in context and instantly became enamored. It triggered something deep down in my writing self and began a lugubrious period of my writing. Heart of Darkness—now that’s lugubrious! I worked the new word into a several poems (that I no longer have) and into conversations until my communications teacher told me I was overusing it. She didn’t like me anyway. (I have witnesses to back me up.)

from http://imgkid.com/flying-raven-drawing.shtml

Yeah, I was kind of experimenting with writing darker, deadlier drama, when, introspectively, my life was neither difficult nor dreary. Ms. Wessel, the creative writing teacher said I started to sound like Joseph Conrad in my descriptions.

                And that isn’t cool enough, in Disney’s Hercules, the henchmen Pain and Panic refer to their lord Hades as “Your Most Lugubriousness.” Who wouldn't want a title like that? Don’t all raise your hands at once. And don’t worry; I’m not as lugubriously-minded as I thought I was as a senior.

Abridge (The Unabridged Edition)

abridge: (verb) to shorten (a book, a play, etc.) by leaving out some parts

            Mr. Anson does not allow his honors students to read abridged editions of classics over the summer. (What a jerk, right?)

http://www.victorianweb.org/technology/bridges/towerbridge.html

At the beginning of 9^th grade, I was placed in first period Honors English with Mrs. Uram. I settled in on the first day, received an unabridged copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, and given an enormous list of vocabulary words. I was surrounded by many friends from middle school, and was quite content; I was in my element.
The next day, I was pulled out of class before it even started, along with two other fellow freshmen. We were escorted to the counseling department where we were curtly given new schedules.

“Why?” Brent ventured to ask.

“You’re being put into a more advanced math class,” was the only reply we received from the secretary, who promptly lost herself in the clackety-clack of her typewriter, an obvious dismissal.

We trudged slowly across campus to our new geometry class where Mr. London put us to work with equations immediately. We didn’t have time to think about the rest of our schedules, but one thing we did notice was that were the ONLY freshmen in a group of sophomores and juniors. A couple of remedial seniors lurked in the back. It looked like the beasts hadn’t been fed in a while either.

The bell rang soon enough and I remembered to check my new schedule: English with Mr. McGowan. My jaw dropped. I wasn’t in Honors any more. I asked Brent and Jenny about their lots, but they just had Honors English later in the day. I marched straight back to the counseling office.

After waiting for half of infinity to even get someone to talk to me, my presence was deflected with a “It was the only English class that fit with your electives.” In the words of Mr. Keating, “Excrement.” But there was nothing I could really do about it. I wasn’t a confrontational person.

So I went—tardy—to Mr. McGowan’s English class. Apparently I interrupted the bearded giant’s great bellowing lecture about timeliness and respect and honor of the gods and mythology and stuff, and I was banished to the penultimate (vocab word to come) row, as it was the only open seat.

I put my head down on the desk behind the high dark curls in front of me. I jumped when Zeus (as we came to call him under our breaths) began to bluster again. I slunk back down when it became obvious he wasn’t really watching us but focusing on his own performance.

A tap on my left shoulder. “Aren’t you going to say hi?” I had been too distracted to pay attention to my classmates. Alicia was to my left, Danielle in front of me, Armando to the right. Maybe this class wouldn’t be too bad after all. I don’t remember who sat behind me, though, but I do remember that he didn’t do much of anything.

I know this because each Monday, five new vocabulary words stared at us from the chalkboard on the side of the room (many of which I still remember). We were supposed to define each and write a sentence correctly using it. Complete sentences were required; no abridgements allowed. Test was every Friday. Distinctly, I recall the very initial word of the year was “abridge.” Not too hard. We were given a little time (once) to use the archaic lexicons under our desks to search for definitions, so I raced through my work, and began to doodle out of boredom. Geeky me started sketching a rough bridge abstractly similar to Tower Bridge in London. Then I set the bridge on an a blue inky fire to “abridge the bridge.” I cracked myself up a little too loudly because Zeus overheard the snickering and made me confess my deeds.

With his fiery eyes burning behind his Coke bottle glasses, his immensity started to fill the room. I gulped because I knew I was going to die.

Fortunately, instead of offering me up as a sacrificial oblation to the dictionary gods, Mr. McGowan guffawed and made me explain it to some of the students around me, including the nameless dude behind me. If I remember correctly, he just blew his hair out of his eyes while he rolled them.

Yes, there you have it: I am a word geek. Then again, I have never forgotten my word because I made a visual connection. Dang. That’s another awesome vocab building strategy.

Sadly, my 9th graders try to abridge everything they do, especially when it comes to writing and thinking.                                       

You Can Never Have Too Much Pie

multifarious:(adjective) of many and various kinds

                  My multifarious reading interests and endeavors rarely allow me time to finish one book, as I am usually working on eight or nine simultaneously.

                  So, to be completely honest, I just looked this word up today. I was questing for a new word (another good vocabulary acquisition tool—insatiable curiosity) to describe all the types of pie I consumed over Thanksgiving Break. And I was flat-out tired of “various” and “multiple.” “Sundry” didn’t quite feel right either, so I looked in a thesaurus to unearth something new and shiny (almost as good as Christmas)

Hint: Make your thesaurus your friend. Don’t over-rely on him, but know where to find him when you need help.

Now back to the pie. We had pie at school before the break. We consumed pie on Thanksgiving. However, in our family, the biggest pie ingestion fest comes the day before Turkey Day. We get together with my mother-in-law’s side of the family for the Puckett Pie Palooza every year! It’s a literal pie smorgasbord with such a multifarious assortment of pies, the lesser experienced get lost before they even pick up a plate. Needless to say, much pie is consumed, sometimes a la mode, sometimes without the extra scoop of vanilla creaminess. Of course, I always opt for ice cream.

With the three pie-eating events established, along with the pies the youth of our ward made one evening, I shall now compile my list of pies (in alphabetical order) that have passed my lips lately:

1.     apple (2 varieties)

2.     banana cream

3.     blueberry cheesecake (Yes, I know, it’s technically not pie, but who cares?)

4.     cherry (2 varieties)

5.     chocolate (2 varieties)

6.     chocolate peanut butter

7.     coconut cream

8.     lemon

9.     Oreo

10.  pecan (2 varieties)

11.  pumpkin (4 varieties)

12.  strawberry

13.  turtle

and…German chocolate cake for my birthday. (Again, it’s not pie, but it’s tradition!)

            Before I go too much longer, I have to say that my favorite pie this year, because it just hit the spot, and because it was scrumptious, was an apple pie made by my wife’s cousin Skyler. Well done, sir. Your pastry satisfied my multifarious needs in an excellent pie.

            And on a side note, since I looked up this word, I have used it in multifarious situations, even though it may not have fit perfectly. I’m having multifarious meaningful interaction with my new word.

P.S. I’m not including any pictures today because I don’t want to be responsible for you shorting out your device from all your drool.

P.P.S. If you want to post some of your own pictures of pie in the comments, I'll allow it.

To Dream the Impossible Dream...

quixotic: (adjective) hopeful or romantic in a way that is not practical (To dream the impossible dream,  right?)

                Mr. Anson still holds to his quixotic dream that all students will learn to love writing.

Several days ago, a few students in my Honors English class asked me if I had ever read any adventures of Don Quixote. Apparently they had been discussing it in their advanced Spanish class, and had even read a few abbreviated selections from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s magnum opus. They were confused about a few things and wanted some clarification.

Alas, I have never read the classic work in its entirety, only an abridged version, but I had seen the musical The Man of La Mancha both on screen and on stage. I knew all the songs at one point. (“Little Bird, Little Bird” is floating through my mind as I type.) I even saw some of La Mancha’s famous windmills as I drove across the landscape of the novel’s bleak setting. So I was able to help my young acolytes with their questions, and they being honors students inquired further about my experiences in Spain and with Don Quixote de La Mancha.

Serving as an LDS missionary in southern Spain, my last proselytizing area was the city of Granada, a center for mixed cultures. The Alhambra, resting atop the hills overlooking the city, was the last Moorish stronghold before Ferdinand and Isabella united Spain. Good ol’ Chris Columbus sought audience with them in a small pueblo called Santa Fe, which lay just outside the main city. I became intrigued by the history of the cultural mush pot, and asked permission to do some reading regarding the surrounding area. I started with Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra, which he wrote while staying on the palace grounds a few hundred feet up the mountain above my little apartment. They contained wonderful fictional tales set in the palace, beautiful descriptions of the actual grounds I had walked; they also contained a few essays about the peoples of the area: native Spaniards, Moors, French, gypsies, merchants, and other sundry travelers.

http://www.spain.info/en_US/que-quieres/rutas/grandes-rutas/rutas/ruta_del_califato.html

One day, while perusing an open-air book market for more history, I came across a hardbound volume of El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha on a clearance sale: the whole thing, unabridged, untranslated, for around fourteen bucks! It was written in Old Spanish, a semi-equivalent of reading Old English. I viewed the tome as an instant challenge intellectually, linguistically, and educationally. However, I only read about 70 pages or so before my brain coerced me to abandon the text posthaste. It literally made my head ache after reading for 10 minutes each day. I didn’t remember the condensed edition being so dense (bad pun). I never finished, although it still resides on a shelf in my basement.

And so the day after I shared my experiences with Don Quixote, the Merriam-Webster Word-of-the-Day email was delivered to my phone with the day’s entry: quixotic. “Cool,” I thought. Fate was throwing in a teaching moment. The word wasn’t necessarily new to me, though; I knew what it meant. However, I had always pronounced it “key-ho-tick,” like it would be in Spanish, and I felt awkward trying to fit it into conversation. Masters Merriam and Webster saw to it to correct my misguided ways with its cool little pronunciation key, and I now know it’s pronounced “quick-saw-tick. Since then I’ve been able to roll it into a plethora of formal and informal discussions.

I shared that coincidence with my honors class, bringing the book for show and tell. Many of them marveled at the manuscript while others thought the coincidence was creepy. But since then, I’ve had many of these students share cool words they have discovered in their outside reading with me and with each other. They’re creating meaningful uses of new words. That’s how you build vocabulary. They’ve started using “quixotic” as well, especially when I talk about helping them improve their writing. Go figure.

Helping students to improve their vocabularies should not be such a quixotic quest. It’s almost easier than reaching the unreachable star.

Kerfuffle

So here’s the deal. Thanks to those who commented when I asked what I should do for a gimmick this December, but I decided yesterday in the shower—a favorite thinking spot of mine—to go a different route. Oh, I’ll occasionally post a great inspirational quote or scripture or something on Facebook (Are you my friend?), and I’ll continue to do my brief book reviews on Goodreads.com (Again, I ask if you are you my friend?), but my focus this year’s binge writing will be vocabulary.

Yes, you heard me. Vocabulary. You remember that part of school that you didn't really think was much more than a waste of good socializing time, don’t you? Those Friday tests that required nothing more than a regurgitation of a definition? Unfortunately, we were mistaught through those definition-vomiting sessions to detest, abhor, despise, and loathe new vocabulary, especially is spelling and perfect repetition played any part. Well, I can attest that there is more to acquiring an expanded vocabulary than “test and release.” Just ask anyone who has taken the GRE or any post-grad test like unto it. Vocabulary is a measurement of one’s intellect. Just ask my students who insist I make up words just so they can’t understand. (Confession: I do invent words, but not ones they don’t understand; I usually invent them so they can understand in their own special little ways.) Proper usage of one’s lexicon commands respect, and might even get you hired faster in certain circles (as long as you’re not an arrogant cretin about it).

So, here’s the drill. Each day I will start the post with a word, its part of speech (or at least the one I’m using), a definition, and an examples sentence or two. This will be the bare minimum. Occasionally I’ll have a story to go along with it, similar to my piece about learning to correctly pronounce the word “epitome” the hard way. Some words will be educational; some will be just be fun words to say, while others will reflect the mood of the day. Sorry, if you’re disappointed, but here we go!

I’ll start with a short entry, as I have a story for tomorrow’s word. Don’t forget to check the link to Merriam-Webster’s site for more fun with this word (including pronunciation and etymology).

kerfuffle: (noun) a disturbance or fuss

                Shelby caused quite a kerfuffle when she came into class with blue and purple streaks in her blond hair.

Making Connections

The door to the jet way hissed open, and the rush of humidity overwhelmed me, almost as if someone forced me to breathe from a fire hose. Instantly, the desert-accustomed pores of my skin oversaturated themselves, and I began to sweat profusely, my T-shirt clinging to my body. I sighed with exhaustion.

It had been an eternal flight. Originating in Salt Lake City at 10:30 the night before, I hit Denver an hour after all the airport restaurants had closed. Hungry, eyes too bleary for reading, I paced the length of the terminals until just after midnight, when I boarded the flight to Atlanta. I was stuck for the next three and a half hours next to a couple who continually sucked face. They kept the duty free liquor running until they passed out midflight; that’s when I added this experience to the list of hellish episodes I had endured over the summer. Unfortunately for me, I can’t sleep when I fly. I was able to catch a short nap and a small bit of breakfast in the Hartsford-Jackson International Airport before boarding the small jet for the last seventy-five minute leg of the journey into Wilmington.

I mechanically retrieved my luggage from the overhead compartment and shuffled down the blue-carpeted aisle toward the door of the airplane. “Never again,” I swore to myself, “will I fly red-eye. It’s not worth the price difference.”

The passenger terminal hummed like a swarm of worker bees, bustling here and there, trying to catch connections, answering the perpetual buzz of their cell phones, moving without thought—just instinct—toward the next destination. The smell of overpriced under-flavored coffee and over-perfumed, under-deodorized travelers hung suspended in the North Carolina humidity.

The trek to the baggage claim seemed an obstacle course fraught with runaway luggage, unattended children, and more janitorial carts and cones than I saw actual custodial workers. In the grand activity of the airport, I was small—a feeling I had come to recognize more and more that summer.

It started in June as my wife and I drove across the country—from Utah to the east coast of North Carolina—almost 2300 miles with four kids in a van. Sariah was six, Zac was four, Ally was two, and Brooklyn was about eight weeks old. Let that sink in. Truth be told, the drive out was fairly uneventful other than an unplanned screaming fit just outside Vail, Colorado.

Two days after arriving at Amy’s parents’ house, I flew back to Utah to begin a semester on campus at Utah State University. It was one of the requirements for my Master’s Degree to spend a certain amount of time face to face with professors. So I lived in my friend’s mother-in-law apartment, a clean but shabby one-room deal with a small kitchen and bathroom detached from the main house. My friend and her husband were away on a cross-country Harley trip for most of the five weeks I was up there. I really didn't know anyone in my program, as I had taken all of my other classes online at a distance site. I did have a few friends who lived in Logan, but most of them went away for the summer. There was no one to keep me company except for the spiders and box elder bugs.

That was probably a good thing, though, since I lived at the library every day until it closed at 5:30. My days were filled with six hours of class: Reading Assessment and Intervention, Content Area Reading and Writing, and Advanced Reading Comprehension, so there was at least six more hours of homework and research and writing every night. I had no time for anything else. On a rare occasion, I actually sat down for a meal. I couldn't have been lonelier if I sequestered myself in some remote shack like a tree-hugging hermit in the Uintahs.

Sure, I had a phone and could talk to my family every so often, but the isolation drove me crazy. Sometimes I would sit in the park to read a textbook and watch random kids playing just so I could have the noise and laughter I was accustomed to. Then, after all the moms began giving me death stares and stink eyes, I felt like some sort of weird creeper and slinked home to study by myself again.

Even doing normal things like watching baseball on TV or strolling through Logan’s small zoo and parks didn't really do anything for me. I even tried going to the movies by myself, an act I had never before committed. Talk about a weird experience. I swear I will never do it again. Creeper.

In short, I got lost in the shuffle of a life that didn't really know me, and I didn't really fit in. Emptiness is probably the best way to describe it. I was nothing more than a drone: wake up. Go to class. Study. Go to bed. Repeat. I began to really feel for society’s outsiders. This time, though, I was the ignored pariah. I hate to even admit it, but I really wondered if I even mattered. My family, the ones I loved, were being taken care of two time zones away; they were just fine without me. In fact, they were having a blast at the beach and everywhere else Grandma and Grandpa took them. All this, while I struggled as an academic automaton, trying to put a few different letters after my name: M.Ed.

As I traversed the country back toward my family after the summer term ended, I wondered if the sacrifice was worth it. The loneliness I experienced as I drifted through the seas of strangers in airports didn't help my self-pity party either. I was a walking statistic with a paid ticket, nothing more. Tired, disheveled, I made my way slowly to collect my bags.

As I passed through one sliding glass door, I heard a battle cry that saved my life. “Daddy!” I looked up to spy Amy pushing a stroller through the airport doors, the other three kids racing toward me. A dad-seeking missile named Zac slammed into my legs, buried his face in my belly, and squeezed for all he was worth. Ally, leaving Sariah in the dust, raced in next and locked her arms around my leg. As if I were wading through quicksand, I forced myself forward, kids still attached, toward a halting Sariah. Even though she isn't the most affectionate, she still hugged me and whispered, “I missed you, Dad,” like only she could.

Preventing the trickle of tears was futile. It was a few minutes before any of the three would let go so I could get to Amy. I guess there were a few people in the world who needed me. And to top it off, little Brooklyn, who had almost doubled her age since I had seen her, still recognized her daddy.

                  (This is the personal narrative I wrote with my 9th graders this year.)

Shuffling through the National Day on Writing

The National Day on Writing has come and gone, and here at the end, I feel like a failure. Well, at least when it comes to trying something new, which is what I usually do this time of year. I though about doing something with this year's theme: writing you community, but it just didn't work for me today. Instead, I just introduced zombie poetry to this year's group. It was a different experience, though, as all my classes are ninth graders, and they've been around the annual SFJH Zombie Haiku Contest for three years. Usually I have an easy sell with 7th graders, but this time 'round it was more like reselling an idea to them that they had discarded two years ago. Most of them bought back in though.

Just a warning, I wasn't really feeling the undead flow today. However, I did eke out a few between all the empty brainwaves.

Here they are for your (dis)pleasure:

counting syllables

has left the zombie poet

without any brains

zombies volunteer

as tribute to get a spot

in the hunger games

cancer, like zombies,

eats your insides without

mercy or remorse

(for the girl who wanted to write kitty haiku instead of zombie haiku:)

munching on kittens

causes zombie snacker to
hack up excess hair

Hopefully I'll come up with something a tad more profound the next time I attempt to write.

Top Ten (Maybe) Influential Reads

                Recently I was challenged to list the ten books that have influenced me in some way, or at least have stuck with me over the years. If you know me at all, that task is a daunting one. Often my students ask me which, of all the thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of books I have read, is my favorite. I usually reply that I don’t have one; naming one single book as my favorite would be like choosing one of my children and setting him or her on a pedestal above the rest. I can’t do it. However, I have decided to attempt this list of ten books.

                I thought that I would start by shooting from the hip—just listing books that came to me off the cuff. That list came to about three dozen books, and that was before I went back to Goodreads.com to see if I had missed anything. (Of course, I had. I ended up with 56.) And so I had to set a few parameters, to narrow my list.

1.       I excluded all religious books. Yes, I am a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), and religious scripture and text had made a big impact in my life, but I figured that at least half of my list would be dominated by religious tomes like The Book of Mormon. And so I decided to eliminate them from my list of ten. Perhaps, I’ll create another separate list of strictly religious texts for another time.

2.       The next eliminating element involved series. I decided to cut all series out of my list and depend solely on works that stood independently. This includes items like The Hobbit  by J.R.R. Tolkien, even though it is technically not part of a series; it is still connected to the world of Middle Earth and the story of The One Ring. If I could only choose one book from a series, I’d end up cutting my wrists instead of items from my list. Maybe I’ll do an influential series list later, too.

3.       The third part of purging dealt with professional reading. Although they have shaped my occupation, works by Kelly Gallagher, Penny Kittle, Deborah Dean, and others were cut to the scrapheap, because, like some of the other rounds of reduction, they might be a little too particular. As I look at shelves in my classroom as I type this, I can hardly decide which have been the top influences in my teaching career, let alone my life. Again, it sounds like this might be another list, although this one might have to be broken down by subjects as well: teaching writing, reading, classroom management, leadership.

4.       I also eliminated poetry.

So where does this leave me? Well, it left me with 17 titles that I felt had influenced my life

and stuck with me.

But before I reveal the top ten, here are the honorable mentions (in alphabetical order by title): Beowulf, Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes, Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen, Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer, Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli, Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar and (believe it or not) Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Quite an eclectic mix, I think. It sort of represents the motley patchwork that makes up my life, though. I wish there were room to share all the stories behind all of these. Some of these, though, I have already written about; others I have not. Perhaps I will later.

                So here is the list in alphabetical order by title. I offer no explanations at this time. Deal with it.

1.       Choosing Up Sides by John H. Ritter

2.       The Chosen by Chaim Potok

3.       Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

4.       Guys Write for Guys Read ed. Jon Scieszka

5.       Lord of the Flies by William Golding

6.       The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

7.       Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss

8.       To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

9.       Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt

10.   Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

As I look over this list, I regret that I can’t include many (MANY) more, but I suppose that’s just something I’ll have to live with. The good news is that there are many more books to read before I sleep.

If you want to see my Goodreads stuff, and we're not already friends (on the site), please send a request. More than likely I'll honor your request. Heh heh.

How I Broke My Butt

Now that the title has caught your attention, I will proceed to ramble. If my blog died in back June as I indicated, its soul was eradicated in July and August. It took me getting back to writing with my students to resurrect its meager existence. And I could go on about my intentions, but we all know where those lead. I did scratch out several pages of notes, including the tale that follows, but that is neither here nor there. Whatever lapse has occurred, I am back now.

On the third of July, my wife fielded a phone call from Zac’s teacher from fifth grade: Mrs. H. She lived not too far away from us, and we were fairly well acquainted with their family. She invited us to bring the kids over to play on the zip line they had rigged up in their back yard. My kids, loving Mrs. H and not really knowing what a zip line was were all about going. I, knowing their tolerance for heights, was a bit reluctant. However, my wife had some meeting to attend, and I was delegated as official chaperon on this field trip.

I had been to the house before, but never in the back yard. The lawn was neatly trimmed, the flower beds immaculately pruned, the garden growing tidily in the corner. On the north side a small tree house platform sat at about ten or twelve feet from the ground, a wooden railing around it. From it ran a steel cable zip line all the way to the south fence. Connected to the cable on a wheel was a T-shaped metal seat for someone to sit on as they zipped down. At first glance, I thought “No way. There is no way I could ride that thing. The kids can have fun, but it won’t hold my weight. No way.”

As if she read my mind, Mrs. H said, “Don’t worry. It’s safe.”

I raised a doubtful eye brow.

“Lots of guys your size and bigger have ridden it,” she continued.

“We’ll see,” I said, but I still had my doubts.

Zac took to it with ease, and pretty soon he was zipping down and scrambling back up the tree for another go. His sisters got a little jealous, but they were still too afraid to try. Even Sam, who usually tries everything at least once, had lost his nerve.

Mrs. H and I tried to convince them to try but were met with resolute refusals.

Somewhere in the conversation, one of the girls said they would do it if I did it.

Gulp.

So when the seat was close to the ground, I tested out the strength of the rig by pulling down on it. Hard. It held.

So I walked it back up the line a few feet and pulled again adding more of my body weight. It still held.

So I walked it farther. Tested. Again, it held.

Feeling somewhat confident in the durability of the equipment, I finally decided to sit on the bar with my feet still on the ground. Surprisingly, it remained steady.

Then I pushed off, fully sitting on the seat, to a height of about four feet. The bolt snapped. And I fell like an anvil in a road runner cartoon straight on my backside, which was planted on the metal bar.

As soon as I hit, I rolled onto my stomach, trying to assess the damage. My first thoughts were “Holy crap! I broke my butt.” I knew that was ridiculous—a memory of Josh W. “breaking his butt” sliding into home plate at baseball practice back when I was a sophomore replayed in my mind. He was trying to take the extra base on a play to the outfield when the relay throw hit him square between the cheeks. I chuckled to myself (because it was better than crying in front of the kids), but even that hurt.

Eventually, I was able to stand and start moving again. Mrs. H profusely apologized (and still does every time I see her). The next day was the Fourth, and we held too our family traditions: Freedom Festival parade in Provo, followed by lunch at the Brick Oven, then to a BBQ at my parents’. This year we had tickets to go to the Stadium of Fire concert with Carrie Underwood and other guests. Now, for those who don’t know me too well, I don’t really like country music, but all the sitting I had to do, especially on the hard, metal bleachers, made it unbearable. Needless to say, my tailbone ached for the whole month of July.

It’s only been a week or so ago that I was actually able to take my stairs two at a time without excruciating pain. Yesterday, I finally went back to the back yard where I busted my posterior to face my demons. (Not really. Mrs. H wanted Zac to help her with the ALS ice bucket challenge. Do you know how excited he was to dump a bucket of ice water on his teacher?) Mr. H made a point to show me how he had placed an even larger bolt on the zip line to replace to the one I snapped in two (clean break). And now we all laugh about it. Even though I didn't seriously jack up my spine, or even my tailbone, I still have miles to go when it comes to listening to my instincts, and not giving in to pretty girls, especially if the princesses are adorable seven or nine years old missing a few teeth.

June is a Place My Blog Goes to Die

I've had that title in my mind for close to a week now, and now that I actually have had a chance to look at my blog, I'm surprised that so many people have tuned it despite my lack of a posting presence. Joe Average Writer hasn't died this summer (yet). Then again, it might just be the same stalker who looked up the blog 400 times in the past two weeks. I don't know. Either way, it's kind of scary. Traditionally, once school ends, my blogging goes on vacation even if I don't. Last year I had to get ready for my comprehensive finals. The two previous years I was up in Logan trying to cram 9 credits into six weeks (each year). Sometimes July is worse, but I'm not going to let that happen this time. There will be no flat-lining on this blog this summer!

http://blog.contrarymagazine.com/2012/06/writers-block-theres-an-app-for-that/

Really, though, I have been burning the candle at three ends. Even though I haven't been in class, I feel busier. The month of June brought many challenges in the form of grading. The online course that Amy and I teach saw enrollment numbers skyrocket crazier than second grade girls on jumbo Pixie Stix. And with that spike came unprecedented numbers of plagiarists and whiners and all the joy that they bring to an English teacher. (Grumble.) Needless to say, after spending almost full-time hours at my part-time job for the past two months, I haven't been in the mood to really write much beyond the seven or eight stock comments that all high school writing assignments require. I haven't even been up for many snarky comments on Facebook. I haven't even read much…for pleasure, that is.

However, after finishing up my revisions for IRB (for my dissertation), I have resolved to write more and actually do something about the dozen or so blog posts caught in the spin cycle that is my brain. Now that I can breathe easier--portfolio submissions topped out at 335 or so; now we're down to 45--I can write that piece for Voices form the Middle, that article for Utah English Journal, and then maybe I can plan my curriculum for next year. Ive got some ideas for a presentation ion the value of read-alouds in the secondary classroom, too. Unfortunately, I missed the deadline for the conference that would have been perfect. Oh, well. I can save it for later. I also want to play more with the value of personal narratives. I might even throw in  recipe or two that I've been concocting.

That means, I'll get back to exposing my past by unearthing embarrassing stories. If you have any requests, like always, I'd be glad to take them.