Two Days of School Days

It has been a very full two days. Monday was groceries, house chores, eye doctor, and math class. Tuesday was house chores, therapy, Teen Voices Interview, and poetry class. Today began with babysitting from 6:45 to 8:45, catching up on the blog world, homework, and now posting. This afternoon more homework, bank, make dinner.

The best part of all these busy days? Coming home to my patient, thoughtful, gentle, encouraging, supportive, loving, amazing husband at the end of them. He picks me up at the bus stop, asks me about my day, opens my car door when we get home, runs ahead to get the house door, lets me go about getting situated back at home and into my pj's, and is ready and waiting for primo cuddling on the couch when I finish up. Just had to give him a shout out because transitions can be tough, this back to school thing is a definite transition, and he is making it so much easier.

The Wonderful Mr. BrainyandBeautiful


*Photo courtesy of A Better Sound.

Math. I am in awe of Math. I almost feel like I am taking a Math appreciation course, but really we are learning math concepts from the beginning of Math to now and applying them to every day situations. The first week we talked about how angles and geometry are key to building sound structures and about Triangulation and how early man used it for navigating the land and how it has been used subsequently in war, football, and space travel, among other things. This week was about circles, navigating the sea, Math as a language with different dialects, the Greenwich clock, true north, magnetic north, and compasses. It is all fascinating and feels more relevant than it ever has for me before. The professor is very excited about Math and very comfortable with sitting in silence while we sit and try to come up with answers to his questions which makes for a fun and comfortable atmosphere. Very engaging. My appreciation for math and good teachers is growing exponentially (yippee for math terms!).

Poetry. It makes me feel all dreamy and passionate. Last night's class had us analyzing Tomaz Salamun, an esoteric, stream of consciousness, imaginative, "Alice in Wonderland" type poet. His work is filled with fascinating juxtapositions, always something at odds in his poems, and, even though on the surface things don't make complete sense, the reader is drawn in to trying to make sense of the madness. One of my favorite poems by him is Barbies from his book titled Blackboards.

In class we each wrote a poem in the spirit of Salamun's work using the following words/phrase: little pointed ears, spokes, pumpkin, peony, hemorrhages, Barbies, kayak, chart, bread, anchorage, dumplings, Bandaid, handbags.

I found mine a bit lacking, but I share it here anyhow:
Little Pointed Ears speak meaningless sounds. Spokes poke noiselessly through.
Pumpkin Peony hemorrhages barbies. Kayak chart the way. Bread an anchorage for dumplings. Just a bandaid for tomorrow's handbags.

Typing this out I wonder if I should change "Just" in the last line to "Lust"... I think it would kind of make things more interesting. Anyway, it appears as it was written last night.

For the second half of class we analyzed and critiqued the work of our classroom peers. We did not get to three or four poems (including mine), but it was an intellectually stimulating experience none-the-less. Everyone in the room has opinions and speaks them. Listening to my peers helps me to be a better analyst of poetry, a better critic, and a better writer. Reading the work of my peers causes me too feel that my poetic work is too simple, too elementary, too clean. I am interested to hear what they think of my work when we analyze it next week. This will be an enlightening semester.

Finally, I had my interview with Teen Voices Magazine yesterday. Their office space feels very much like a loft apartment with brick walls painted white, comfy furniture, and creatively divided space. Lisa Rodrigues interviewed me, was very welcoming, and we had a great conversation as I answered her questions and she mine. I feel it went well, but one never knows. The verdict comes in by the end of the week. Regardless of the result, the experience of interviewing and meeting such kind, intelligent, driven, passionate women was a gift.

Though very busy and full, the week is off to a fantastic start.