Rize

English was the only class I ever received a failing grade in; It was the class that presented my greatest headache, that I applied myself the most in, that I achieved the least in. I was not enthusiastic about the language portion of my job description. Teaching, I'm learning, is about passion for your subject matter more than techniques, strategies, or lesson plans. My lackluster attitude towards language, reading, and grammar, became the foil to the enthusiasm and passion for my mathematics.

Fortunately, 75% of my assignments did not require it of me as my colleagues and bosses did their best to clear me of these duties, a good math teacher being almost an endangered species; I let the remaining 25% slip...

...to the obvious detriment of my students' performance, as monthly testing in verbal and mathematics life skills continually verified for us. Students who had supplemental language instructors far outperformed my students who had not - even in the math area since 100% of the math tests are life skills problems presented in words. Students unable to decode the intent of a question made any mathematical skills gained and mastered mute. Results-driven motivation drove my conversations with reading-teacher-friends for direction in language instruction.

Through tentative efforts, I re-discovered my love for words and joy in idealogical debate. Recently, my class had a discussion about the relative legitimacy of a biography vs. an autobiography. Equally compelling arguments on both fronts left a question in the air; my favorite form of discussion.

Soon after this unresolved debate, I ran across the following two views on a film I love, RIZE:

One told in the voices of the dancers in the film and the other by an outside observer. Truth all around, but radically opposing viewpoints. A perfect revelation of the finer points of our recent debate!

Healing. Cleansing. Reinforcing.

Being sick is like the breaking down of old debris and clearing house. Sure, sickness is a time of vulnerability, but through the process of being sick, the body is reinventing itself, and rebuilding in such a way so that once you are well again, you are reinforced and stronger.

Such as it may be, it makes sense to have spent the last five days treating my sickness with equal parts of the following:

I. Serious sweat, body pounding, tai-chi, and yardage in the pool;

II. Nectar of the Gods: alcohol

III. Communing with neighbors, friends, and colleagues.

IV. Feeding the soul with creative and artistic inspirations: Basquiat

Feeling stronger than ever coming out from the underside of health.

Welcome to Baltimore

About a month ago, I put two weeks of my trash out in my ingenious 5-gallon bucket. Returning home, I lifted the lid of said bucket and found my little bags of unpalatable trash still intact while the relative gargantuan buckets of my neighbors were strewn upended and empty across the sidewalk. Not the first time my petite contribution to the city's waste repository was overlooked, I took out my phone and dialed 311 to report this latest oversight of the City's Public Service Employees, upon which the disembodied voice at the other end usually apologizes sending amends on its way. This time, however, the voice proffered that my can was to be a minimum of 33-gallons, and given its relative minisculity, they were NOT going to remediate!

OH! The indignity of it. I had enough. Tossing aside the cap of my small can, I proffered my own small bag of landfill-bound refuse, marching myself down the 1-1/2 blocks, mumbling expletives the whole way, to Broadway Ave, chucking my plastic, multi-layered wrappers into the public can on the corner. No more trash pickup for me. From now on, it was going to be trash... DROP-OFF.

The experience inspired me to revive this photo from two summers ago returning after traveling for a month in Taiwan. A plea by my child to PLEASE, pick up our recycling!

WELCOME to Baltimore.