Professor Sharon

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98 days and a Sunday

February 23rd, 2014 · 100 Days Project, College students, Education, Musings, retirement, Work

I’m looking forward to a Sunday, many of them actually, when I don’t have to spend the afternoon preparing for classes!  What will I do when I have no homework to read, lesson plans to write, and organizing of a briefcase to do?

I have had the good fortune to breakfast once a semester with the amazing woman who established the department I have worked in these past 14 years.  I have declined to say from the beginning that I took her job – no one could fill those shoes!  I have been privileged to work in a school and in a job that the community respects because of her hard work.  One recent breakfast she said that one of the biggest changes about retired life was that she had her Sundays back!

Here’s to Sunday afternoons – all year round!

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99 days, and I am counting.

February 23rd, 2014 · Education, family, Musings, My Goals, retirement, Teaching & Learning, travel, Work

And, I suppose why not?  Some of the feelings up to this point – particularly as I was making the news known to my colleagues – were mixed.  It still feels mixed on occasion.  I really shall miss the teaching, and the privilege of watching the growth, of my students.  I will not miss what I have lovingly called “the politics” at my work.  My loyalty is real, and I do believe everyone I work with has the best of intentions.  I also know that the best of intentions can make some folks really territorial, and that’s unpleasant.  And, something I don’t care for; and something I shall not miss!

So I am counting.  I am counting down to the day that changes my life, in some way as yet unknown, again.  I’ve had these days before, but they weren’t always as formal.  I counted the days until I would be a married woman – and celebrate each year the accumulation of those days with a very special husband. I counted down the days until each of my babies would change my life.  I don’t always count, but often notice the passage of days until one thing or another happens – days until a trip sometimes leave you excited, and sometimes leave you thinking there isn’t enough time to do all the chores that need to get done before that trip.

These days I count with anticipation of the surprise that life will offer me; with the pleasure of more time and choice to fill those days in a way I’ve never had the opportunity to take advantage of — I’ll fill my days; I’ve already had a million offers and a million ideas.

So I’m counting down, and I’m counting up to……

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100 days, but who’s counting?

February 22nd, 2014 · Education, Important People, Musings, My Goals, Quote of the Week, Teaching & Learning, Work

On this birthday of Edna St. Vincent Millay, a quote:

“My candle burns at both ends; / It will not last the night; / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends — / It gives a lovely light!”

In 100 days I expect to retire from a job that has helped to burn my candle at both ends for about 14 years.  I have mixed feelings about the extinquishing of one end – but something tells me that it’ll take me a while to know that there’s plenty of light with only one end burning as well!

 

 

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Merlin speaks of learning…

October 30th, 2013 · Musings, Quote of the Week, Reading, Teaching & Learning

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

? T.H. White, The Once and Future King

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October 28th, 2013 · Education, Important People, Musings, Quote of the Week, Teaching & Learning

“The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.”  Evelyn Waugh

The “Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keiller” reports that today is this author’s birthday, and provides us with this quote.  Just this past week, I’ve been having some interesting conversations with young children, pre-service teachers and family about Halloween, and “inventing horrors.”  I’m curious about its history in the US; I know that there are several religions and cultures that observe the last day of October or the first day of November in various ways in honor of their dead.

When I was a child, I remember that Halloween was about children, and thus involved a lot of “cuteness” 50 plus years ago.  The cuter or sweeter the costume the better — horror inspired costumes were frowned upon – the scariest allowed was really a sheet and you were a ghost.  But even that was considered the lazy way out of the holiday.

When a child recently said to me that Halloween decorations all had to be scary, not sweet (like a kitten in a pumpkin hat, for example), I became curious about this need to have such horror, blood and guts and visual disgustingness in our lives.  I don’t have an answer – I plan to put this curiosity on my list to discover more about – I suspect cultural anthropologists or sociologists may have theories.  For now, I just have the curiosity.

Why do we humans need to feed ourselves gore and blood and guts for entertainment?

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