Some Random Thoughts

So let’s get some things down.

First, firsts. How joyful, satisfying, happying or whatever smiley-faced emoticon deserving adjective it has been to watch the girls the last two weeks. First back dives, first flips off the diving board, and for Emma, first successful foray into bodysurfing down in LBI. Yes, even for me, first flip off the diving board; I chickened out on the back dive, but summer’s not over yet.

Second, The Idiot. I have to admit, I finished it more out of a sense of obligation than enjoyment. I clearly want redemption out of Dostoevsky, and The Idiot doesn’t give it to me. By the end of the story, Prince Myshkin had frustrated me so much with his inability to follow his own mind that I didn’t care whether he ended up with Aglaya or Nastasya; whatever coupling was going to happen wasn’t going to matter to me at all. And his response to what Rogozhin did at the end reminded me too much of Ellen Foster to make me feel like it was the response of a grown man who had had some of the prince’s insights over the course of the story.

Early in the story, the prince’s capacity for forgiveness was, if not inspiring, welcoming. His forgiveness became a deficit as the story went on; it’s safe to say that always forgiving everyone isn’t good. In your little circle, it makes the offending parties repeat bad behavior. In the bigger picture, uncompromising forgiveness establishes a status quo in which, culturally, the wrong people have the upper hand.

As we get closer and closer to school, I better start thinking about my classes. One thought that occurred to me as I considered my vacation was to write it as “The University of Long Beach Island.” There is a class in bodysurfing, and another in boogieboarding. You can take a seminar on Bay v. Ocean, or a course in Comparative Eateries: Greasy Spoons, Seafood Spots. There might also be an elective on Unstructured Vacation Time, in which the ethics of laziness are discussed, as well as providing instruction in game invention.

I better get my ass reading and writing poems, and think about whether or not I need to change up my AP class, and how my shared AP class is going to differ from my yearlong AP class, and to see if I should go to a different approach to the HLLC writing workshop – maybe a little more time spent on forms, you know, giving the how-to a go, or trying the University of idea and seeing what kids can do with it.

I also need to look into podcasting as a means of giving feedback. Sorry for the shitty quality of the writing here tonight. I’m not accustomed to writing in a room filled with the sounds of television and children.