Wednesday, March 30, 2005

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him." So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned home. But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" She thought it was the gardener and said to him, "Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni," which means Teacher. - John 20:1-16

As you get older, you begin to like Easter more than Christmas. I think that this is because adult life is full of pain and tedium (just try and tell me it's not, you chipper thing you), and peace comes rarely, and where you least expect it. You begin to appreciate, albeit in some small way, the sorrow of the Pieta, and the joy of finding the risen Christ in unexpected places.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

p.s. this movie will change your life. well, maybe not. but it is darn funny. also, possibly nsfw.

What I love best is the smell of fresh rain. After it's been raining for a while, all the earthworms crawl out and die on the pavement. And that doesn't smell so good. More, umm, meaty than I'd like. But fresh rain...mmm.

I'm going to invent a perfume which encapsulates the scent; it will draw men by the droves, much like the beer scented perfume which I am also going to invent (any day now).

Monday, March 21, 2005

Then

A Monday night on a campus with an eleven p.m. curfew. Yours truly and two other girls (hint: one is now a housewife) dress in black, paint on false moustaches, fill a pillow case with food, and climb out the window of our sex-segregated dormitory. Cue much ducking behind bushes and sidling around trees, a la mission impossible. We then break into the library (easily effected with a credit card, at the time). The library is cavernous, and at night, a bit spooky. We have a picnic in the middle of the library. Then we set up a sound system and run through the stacks, shrieking like banshees, while our normally staid surroundings were filled with the strains of...Queen.

Thinking back on it, I'm still not sure why the moustaches were necessary. Or the Queen, for that matter.

Now

A Monday night at chez wavelet. I'm trying to do this Charleston...thing. Normally, this would go along the lines of:

kick turn kick step, kick turn kick step.

When I'm practicing it, it's more like:

kick kick stumble step, kick kick kick "FUCK!!!" turn kick step step "DAMMIT!" kick.

I'm thinking of taking up, umm, boxing. At least, no matter what, I'd get to hit things.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

you would be surprised at how often this happens when we go out for sushi

in related news, my friends are all gaijin.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

I recently was stuck in traffic behind someone who had managed to combine THREE of the worst bumper decal memes evah into ONE pant-soiling monstrosity. I shit you not, she had American flag Jesus fish of varying sizes in a family type group; there was Daddy americanflagjesusfish, Mommy americanflagjesusfish, and Baby americanflagjesusfish. If only the vehicle in question had been an SUV, surely this would have been one of the portents of a coming apocalypse.

Monday, March 14, 2005

I'm reading some Juvenal. Not in Latin, though, because I am one of those wimpy classicists with a short attention span (I've also been known to read a transliteration of Chaucer, nyah). Anyway, apparently, teachers have been getting the shaft since time immemorial:

Juvenal, Satire VII, 215-243:

What schoolmaster, even the most successful, commands
A proper return for his labours? Yet even this little,
However trifling - and any professor makes more -
Is further whittled away when the pupil's unfeeling
Attendant, and the cashier, have each taken their cut.
Better give in, then: bargain, be beaten down
For a lower fee, like a hawker peddling blankets
And winter rugs - so long as you get some recompense
For presiding, before it's light, in a hell-hole any blacksmith
Or wool-carder would refuse to train apprentices in;
So long as you get some return for enduring the stink
Of all those guttering lanterns - one to each pupil,
So that every Virgil and Horace is grimed with lampblack
From cover to cover. Yet, nine times out of ten,
You need a court order to get even this small pittance.
In return, what's more, such parents demand quite impossible
Standards from any master: his grammar must be above cavil
History, literature, he must have all the authorities
Pat at his fingertips. They'll waylay him en route
For the public baths, and expect him to answer their questions
Straight off the cuff - who was Anchises' nurse, what
Was the name of Anchemolus' stepmother, and where
Did she come from? How old was Acestes when he died?
How many jars of Sicilian wine did the Trojans
Get from him as a present? They demand that the teacher
Shall mould these tender minds, like an artist who shapes
A face out of wax, with his thumb. He must, they insist,
Be a father to all his pupils, must stop them getting up to
Indecent tricks with each other (though it's no sinecure
To keep check over all those darting eyes - and fingers).
"See to it," you're told, "and when the school year's ended,
You'll get as much as a jockey makes from a single race."

Sunday, March 13, 2005

when we're out together dancing cheek to cheek

Hot damn, I love swing dancing. All right, boys* and girls, don your slinky red lounge dresses, then play the following tune IMMEDIATELY: Eva Cassidy, Wade in the Water. Pirate it if you must. This is a song to which one can dance all sultry like. In this age of embarrassingly pelvic prom dance style gyrations, we've almost lost the ability to slink, shimmy, or sway...

* boys, if not confident in their masculinity, may substitute a pinstripe suit

Friday, March 04, 2005

insolence (exhibit a)

A sixth grade boy, trying to convince me to remit some disciplinary action or other:

"Pllleeeeeaaaassseee, Miss P! Please? You'll be my favorite teacher. You'll be my favorite teacher EVER! I'll build a shrine to you, and keep it in my closet! And I'll visit it every day!"

Eeesh. I'm still amused by the fact that this shrine building offer was supposed to persuade me...although, I guess I could do with some worshippers...

insolence (exhibit b)

The seventh grade boys, their mode of greeting me this morning:

"'Allo, poppet!"

As it turns out, they were imitating a line from "Pirates of the Caribbean." Yet another argument against allowing the young and impressionable to watch these so-called "moving pictures."

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

My students were being jerks today. Now, to a certain point, I don't really take this to heart. Adolescents are, after all, festering pools of hormone-addled angst, and can't be expected to act rationally. I love them anyway. I'm even fonder of the problem children (err, some of them); they tend to have less than ideal family lives, or other obstacles to overcome. And y'all know I'm a sucker for the sob story.

However, when an intelligent, popular teen with wealthy, doting parents acts like a petulant little beeyotch...well then. I would use stronger language, but I'm afraid of sounding like one of those chain smoking, alcoholic high school teachers who sits around griping about "kids these days."

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Most of the time, the line for confession at the local parish is 99.9% composed of retirees. Which is odd; you would assume that "young people" would have the most need of being shriven (what with their wanton ways and reckless consumption of Stoli vodka). I like to hypothesize that the elderly are wont to indulge in all manner of secret, salacious vices that we young'ns are not yet privy to. And yes, I know I'm a bad person...that's probably why I'm in the line for confession to begin with...