A Peaceful Transition of Power

Photo: Reuters / Jim Young

    I cried when Rick Warren gave the invocation at Obama's inauguration today. I wanted to be there. The classical music piece, "Air and Simple Gifts," composed by John Williams, was just beautiful and so very fitting.
I let my class out so they could go listen to the inauguration. I told them it was a historic event, and I thought they should see it.
   Historians and critics claimed that Obama's speech was almost scolding in nature, as though he were a father talking to his children. I agree. Obama strikes a fatherly chord that I have not detected in any other President during my lifetime. It is wonderful. It is what we need. A true leader who cares for his people, who scolds us when we need it and who pats us on the back when we deserve it. (We haven't been patted yet because we don't deserve it!)
   My favorite phrase was "...know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy." Build, Obama, Build!
   I am proud to be an American. I am hopeful for our future. Today is a glorious day!

Happy New Year! Who was your First Foot In?

   I spent part of New Year's Eve at Crossroads, listening to the super-funk band "Discoasis." I sat with a lady who was getting a divorce. He husband was leaving her for another man. I told her she looked great, which she did, and I took a picture of her with my cell phone and I sent it to her.
I also ran in to a gentle long-haired fellow who I had seen as a regular at the 5 Points coffee shop. He was a computer person and music enthusiast, so I asked him some questions about my new iPod. He was very helpful. He never downloads songs from iTunes because their quality isn't very good. He prefers to buy CDs for two reasons: 1) the superior sound quality, and 2) he sometimes discovers new songs he loves by putting his iPod on shuffle and listening to unknown tracks on his CDs.
   I eventually met up with my friend P, who is from Scotland, and I was very pleased to find out that New Year's is a more celebrated holiday in Scotland than Christmas. ("Auld Lang Syne," anyone?) P said it was tradition for people to go around visiting their friends, toting Whiskey and a hot coal, I believe, to bring cheer and warmth into the New Year. And since you would be the first person through the door in the New Year, it was called "First Footin'." The tradition has been somewhat suppressed, however, since Scotland has passed strict drinking and driving laws.
   One New Year's Day, I went and saw my all-time favorite couple, Dr. H and Miss M, and they had prepared a wonderful meal of homemade Hoppin' Johns and rolls. And they served it with Champagne. They had prepared a digital slide-show of all their travels during the past ten years, which included Egypt, Australia, South Africa, Antarctica (three times), Alaska, Austria, Crete, and Russia. It was magnificent! They have wonderful friends from all around the world. The pictures were stunning. I was particularly fond of the one of them posing with a koala bear in Australia. Miss M said its fur was so soft she wasn't sure she was really petting it.
   Now I want a pet koala bear.

Dead Day is for TEACHERS!!!

   All students think that Dead Day is for them. It's not. It is for US - the teachers! The weary souls who are tired of calculating your grades so you can figure how much you can slack off on the final and still keep your scholarship that you probably don't deserve. (****Remind me to put explicit instructions on how the students can calculate their OWN grades in my next syllabus. This is getting old!)

    Today in the hallway, I had a brief but very meaningful talk with a co-worker who I admire deeply. She is a veterinarian by training, but now she teaches anatomy and physiology where I work. She is very smart, highly efficient, and a very warm and genuine person. I strive to be like her.

    I can't remember how the conversation started, but it didn't take long for us to stand face-to-face in the hallway, rapidly confessing our awareness of how much our students hate us. Our classes are difficult. We try to challenge them, and we attempt to instill a sense of respect for the sacrifices that were made by the scientists who have increased our knowledge and understanding of the physical world we live in. In return for our efforts, we receive animosity. Our students think we are punishing them, undeservingly. The truth is, they are so accustomed to an uneventful, unchallenged lifestyle that they can't distinguish between rigor and petty meanness. I know this because they respond with petty meanness. They are disrespectful in the classroom. They do not ask to speak before they blurt out something in class. They have to be told explicitly what to study, or they will do poorly on the tests.

    Today, I graded an anatomy lab practical from my class. The class average was a 41. Horrible. And I knew it was going to be that bad, because I didn't hold their hands during the TWO lab periods they had to fully dissect their rats and identify all the major organs. They all left during the first hour of the lab. And I didn't stop them. One girl didn't come to lab at all that day because she had to "go shopping for Homecoming." That same girl put down "anus" on the test for the rat's scrotum. And, she had the gall to ask me if I was going to curve the grades!

    In honor of rats everywhere, I said, "Uh, no."


- TEA, Monday night, Dec 8, 2008

Hooray for the Woolly Mammoth!

   My former advisor and current co-worker Dr. Y informed me today that researchers at Penn State had fully sequenced the nuclear genome of the woolly mammoth.
   So, we are one significant step forward in actually cloning a woolly mammoth during our lifetime!
I announced this to my biology class today, and they seemed genuinely impressed. They were less impressed, however, when I returned their tests from the previous class period. It had been over three chapters of evolutionary processes, and frankly, they did terrible. I told them I might've made the test a little too hard because it was my favorite section.
I announced that I had a small gift for my two highest scorers in the class, and as I was describing the little crustaceans called "Triops" that I was about to give to the top two students, a boy on the front row exclaimed "Triops!" and started babbling on about how he had some before and that they were really neat, etc. etc. I continued talking to the class, trying to explain to everyone what exactly these little horseshoe crab-looking things were, but I was having a hard time talking over the boy on the front row who continued to speak about his former pet Triops. I turned to look at him, and a boy next to him laughed and said, "Would you stop talking about Triops?" I tossed one of the egg packages towards the babbling boy. "That one's yours," I said, since he had been one of my top scorers. He was quite excited about his present, and I was relieved since these are college-aged students and I wasn't sure how they would react to my choice of gifts for their achievements. (The envelope clearly said "For ages 7 and up.") I passed out the other package to my other top scorer, and I think the rest of the class felt left out. They were unusually quiet and attentive. I shrugged and said the Triops "only cost a few bucks at Hobby Lobby," and someone murmured that it wasn't the same if they had to buy them for themselves.

I miss Marisa

   I miss my friend Marisa.

   I grew up with her. She was one of the only good things I knew in high school. She was honest and warm, and the most emotionally naked person I may ever meet.

   I don't know how she convinced herself that no one liked her. I told her she was one of the best friends I had ever had, and I asked her what I could do to help her. She said she wanted me to believe in Jesus. I wanted to help her get a good job, help her pay her bills, hang out with her and drink coffee.

   She was in a funk that she never broke out of. I felt so helpless. Like watching a train wreck. Like watching someone dive off the top of a very tall building. Like I was running with my arms out but I ran too far or I tripped and fell on the way there. It hurt my brain. I remember sitting in my car after I saw her for the last time. My head hurt and hissed like the static on TV. There were no clear channels.

   Marisa told me I was "mothering" her and she didn't like it. But I didn't know what else to do. She was making bad choices. She wasn't taking care of herself. I was worried about her.

   She said she was leaving town and she wasn't coming back. I asked her if I could come visit her, and she shook her head yes. But she never called me. I called her and left messages. I asked for her address. But she never called me.

I dreamt I talked to Don Langford last night

Photo: Don Langford and me with our Saturn Skies

    Don Langford was a bird without wings. I was only 15 the first time I flew with him. He was the most trusted pilot I ever knew, and I have flown with him more than anyone else.

   Don had trouble with one of his eyes in recent years. He underwent experimental surgeries in an attempt to maintain his flight status. I asked my father if it was a good idea to go flying with Don while he was still undergoing his eye treatments, and my father replied, "Don is a better pilot with one eye than most people are with both."

   Don wasn't flying the airplane he crashed in. He was the passenger in a two-seater. He had just sold a lightweight seaplane to someone; a man I didn't know. They crashed into the Tennessee River earlier this year, for reasons unknown.

   Don was my friend, my flight instructor, my advisor on all things aeronautical. I saw him clearly in my dream last night. He was glowing pale blue like the transcendent Jedis do in the Star Wars movies. He looked very frail, like he was going to disappear out of thin air at any second. I seemed to have knowledge that he wasn't going to be around much longer, but I didn't want to tell him that in case he didn't know.

   I looked him straight in the face and said very carefully, "Is there anything you want me to tell anyone?" And he said, without hesitation, "We're all going to the same place anyway."

   He was gone, and I was left wondering what he meant? Did he believe in Heaven? Is there another plane from another dimension, where we might actually meet up once again and go flying together? Or was he being cynical, and meant we all end up in the ground? I don't know.

   But it was so good to see him again.

Go Obama, Go!

   I fell asleep before the election results were over. I did not want to be awake if McCain won.

  The young black people screaming outside my window woke me up later on. It was around 11:30 pm. Well, I thought sleepily. This is history.

   The next day, I watched a very interesting program on C-SPAN where the chairmen for the Republican and Democratic National Committees participated in a Q&A session hosted by the National Press Club.

   Republican Chairman Mike Duncan was understandably upset, and he referenced a story about "Lincoln's young boy stubbing his toe" that I'm not familiar with: "It hurts too bad to laugh and I'm too big to cry." Duncan pointed out a few things he felt contributed to Obama's smashing win over McCain, including the sheer amount of money that the Democratic party had access to. He stated that the Democrats outspent Republicans "3 or 4 to 1" in battleground states. (Are we supposed to feel bad about that? Like THEY wouldn't have done the same thing if they had gotten as much support???)
Duncan also summarized some of Obama's campaign promises, and commented, "Put simply, Barack Obama just ran the most successful moderate Republican Presidential campaign since Dwight Eisenhower." He received a room full of laughter.

   Howard Dean, the Chairman for the Democratic National Committee (and who ran for President 4 years ago), took the stage and said something beautiful about Obama's win. "As a nation, I think what we did was choose hope over fear, we chose the future over the past, we chose unity over division."

   I needed to hear that. I want to believe in that.

   Every upset Republican I've talked to is worried about one thing: their pocketbook. They are convinced that Obama is going to raise taxes and take some of their precious money away.
   Nevermind that the Republicans have spent the past five+ years championing a senseless, endless war that we simply cannot afford. Where did they think we would get the money to pay for the war tab? This absence of fundamental planning boggles the mind, and the lack of concern over the mental health of our sent-and-return-again soldiers has incensed me. YES, these men and women are strong. YES, these men and women are brave. They are also human beings who were not designed to endure this sort of mental trauma. And certainly not over, and over, and over again. I am particularly furious about the treatment of our troops, let me tell you.

   I watched a press meeting with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House. She said the Republican members of Congress had been working together to repeatedly block legislation to "protect" Bush from performing a veto. She explained that if an agenda reaches the President and he vetoes it, the whole world knows about it. But, if it gets blocked by the Senate, only a few people know about it. She said some of the agendas that have hit this "Republican obstacle" have included things like the withdrawal date for our troops in Iraq, another stimulus package, and an unemployment insurance extension.

   With at least 5 new seats being changed to Democrats, I am expecting to see some real action now!

   One final thing to ponder - Howard Dean also mentioned that the Democrats as well as the Republicans have access to everyone's credit card data. He said that they could predict with 85% accuracy who we will vote for based on these data. Be careful what you buy!

-TEA