I'm Such a Hippie

After watching the Lost series finale, one of the things that struck me (don't worry - no spoilers here), was that there were almost exclusively couples in the final scene. As I was in a pretty emotional state at that point, I was moved to think, "Man, love really is what it's all about."

This is nothing new for me, because I've been really like that for most of my life. I've always been in touch with my feelings of love and appreciation. I've always tried to be verbal with the people who have been good to me, and even at 3 am feedings, I've tried to be "in the moment" with my bundle of joy. I have this great marriage, and several close friends that I've had for years. I got this love thing down.

This epiphany from TV, however, made me think about the places in my life that weren't full of love: the grudges I've kept and the people I've written off. I starting feeling how unimportant those things were, and, while I'm not going to throw myself at people who find it a pleasure to manipulate and hurt, I've found that it's easier to just "get over" things that don't have a simple way out.

My husband and I were talking about it on the way home from the Lost Finale Party (heheh, sort of a party. there were two couples, one toddler, and some wheezy dogs that kept eating my chips.), and we realized that that's the one goal we can really say we have for our children: to find an actual, real love that will last. I hate to sound all Snow White-y, hoping that someday their princes (and princesses) will come, but what higher goal can there be? Sure, my kids will be brilliant and successful (right?), but how much more important is it for them to find someone who makes them happy than find a job that makes them rich! When I think about my other "kids" - my students - I honestly hope the same for them. I see some of them out there trying to figure out what to do and focusing so much on where and how much they want out of life, but what makes me the most pleased is when one of them finds someone that really makes him or her feel like no one else in the world could compare.

So if you're looking around and trying to figure out how to make your mark on the world, don't forget to keep an eye out for someone who you could make your world.

And peace, man.

Research Paper Foibles

I've had this blog now for a while, but I never can think of anything original and clever to post on it. Today, though, I decided I'm just gonna start throwing stuff out there and see how it goes.

For instance, I have shared with a few others some of the flawed writings and conversations of my students, but here are some recent favorites:

Some kid just wrote in their research paper that the author Michael Hague (a children’s author) “published The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in 1980 because he always believed in his imagination that there was a world where animals knew how to talk” and also that “in 1991 he made up a story for his daughter called Peter Pan”. Can you smell the Wikipedia?

Another one answered, when I asked the significance of the tapestry of David & Bathsheba in The Scarlet Letter, "Isn't Bathsheba the vampire in the Bible?" When I prompted her to explain (to see if maybe she was misquoting or misunderstanding), she proceded to tell me all she had learned about the vampires mentioned in the Bible. Niiiice.

One that I use as a lesson every year is how a former student included information in a research paper once about how Mark Twain & Edgar Allan Poe were friends and inspired each other in their letter writing. When prompted for her source, she told me found it on Wikipedia. Together, we looked it up in a *real book* and found that EAP died when MT was about 9 years old.