OK, bye!

We're off to vakay on Nantucket
We hope for good weather, with luck it
Will be very fine,
Long days of sunshine.
And worries 'bout work? We'll say---

Awesomeness

Ever wonder about the names of Chinese dishes?

There is a great Thai restaurant in the town where I work. Before they revamped their menu a few years ago, my favorite name for a dish was, "Beef in the Secret". And--cross my heart and hope to die--the explanation offered was, "Do you want to know what the Secret is?...Order this dish to find out!"

What's your favorite culinary title?

Language of Power

The linguistic aspects of my TESL (teaching English as a second language) program are blowing my mind. Yes, I've been a snob about standard English! No, it's not any more legitimate a communication tool than any regional variation of English or any other language or dialect! Yes, standard English serves as an instrument of power, as it is the language of education and high socioeconomic status in this country, and yes, emphatically yes, people living in the U.S. coming from a different home language/dialect will have access to greater social, economic, and political opportunities with standard English on their side.

But all the times I've rolled my eyes as southeastern US accents, or the classic Quincy no-R's pronunciation, or the crude farmers' Portuguese of my ancestors...

According to my (thus far) favorite textbook:

...adding Standard English as a new language or dialect involves much more than learning grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. It requires the expansion of one's personal, social, racial and ethnic identity to make room for the new language and all that it symbolizes and implies.

(p. 44)

Whoa!

Also--also:

Mutual intelligibility is often cited as a criterion to test whether two language varieties are dialects of the same language. However, this test does not always work.[...]languages such as Spanish and Portuguese are mutually intelligible. Yet they are classified as separate languages. In these cases, political status rather than mutual intelligibility plays the deciding role in distinguishing a language from a dialect, thus the assertion that a language is "a dialect with an army and a navy".

(p.40)

Finally, a beautiful quote from African American author James Baldwin (1924-1987) rounds out the awesomeness provided by my textbook reading today:

It [language] is the most vivid and crucial key to identity: It reveals the private identity, and connects with, or divorces one from the larger public, or communal identity...To open your mouth...is (if I may use Black English) to "put your business on the street": You have confessed your parents, your youth, your school, your salary, your self-esteem and, alas, your future.

PS. I feel that I should add a sort of disclaimer: I'm becoming a teacher of Standard English. Why? Not because my students' languages are any better or worse than mine, but because learning SE will open doors for them. It will also make them bicultural, bilingual, and those are good things, if difficult. I love Standard English; it's my language, no better or worse than theirs.

Vball, New Session

It's a new volleyball session! Can you believe it's been eight weeks already?

It seems the Austrians are gone, at least for the summer. The Asian-American middle schoolers remain, and they've gotten good. There were 4 new young women tonight--late teens? early 20s? home from college for the summer?--who played about like I did eight weeks ago. It was sort of fun to see our improvement. One of these newcomers was looking at me like, Wow, you're good, and I was thinking, Honey, I'm bad. I'm just marginally OK. But thanks.

Even more Chinese-American adults came, making a formidable team on the far court, where they played against a bunch of tall girls who probably play on a real team somewhere. Two of my favorite players, a tall Greek woman and her teenaged niece, both so pleasant and so talented, are in Lemnos for the summer. Good for them. I would go, too. The middle-aged women crew did not show tonight.

PS Tonight, my arm muscles were still broken down from Tuesday's vigorous upper body weight-lifting routine. I helplessly watched time and time again as my beautifully arching serve fell harmlessly to our side of the net. "Hit it harder," our coach-figure very helpfully offered. My biceps and triceps laughed at me. I said, "I may need to switch out my weights day from Tuesdays." "Or stretch more," the coach-lady replied, which again, not very helpful.

Wrong Side of the Bed

Aw, hell. I woke up feeling like one giant, sore, bunched up muscle; did my weekly weigh-in to discover I had, in fact, gained half a pound; and then--then!--opened the oven to find that my "forgotten cookies" (meringues left in the oven overnight with the heat off) looked hideous, not at all like meringues.

But, seriously, gaining half a pound? Life is truly unfair. I dragged myself from bed to lift weights twice this week; I ordered a freaking steamed dish when we got Chinese; I tracked everything I ate and stayed within supposedly negative caloric expenditures; I let my tummy grumble a little; I did intervals. WHY, WHY???

I suspect I am constitutionally unable to drop weight. Yes, that's the spirit.

Music

Music for bright midsummer days should be exuberant, youthful, obvious as the sun and shadows. When the cool, inky evenings draw out peeper and cricket song, they ask for sensual, somnolent accompaniment, tinted with a little drama at the edges. The hot, steamy days are not yet constant--then we'll turn on the mellow tunes and lay back, too tired to move. But today, we need music that lets us expand.

For me, this week of the Solstice means Prince. The Purple One unequivocally rules my car in late June. He is a splash of crazy sunlight, an uninhibited but skillfully restrained master of the season's mood. I cruise the suburban streets with my window rolled down, imagining my red Geo Prizm to be a little red corvette. I blast Raspberry Beret--perhaps my favorite of the early hits for its storytelling lyrics and ridiculously infectious groove--crazily singing along in my own poor "falsetto", until I realize I am at a stoplight where respectable people can hear me. No matter!, I decide, They will like this song, too! I'm sharing! I feel my heart soar as my car rounds a bend to the lyrics, "I'm not human, I'm a dove, I'm your conscious, I am love". I groove to the brilliant Musicology. And, as night swells over the treetops and stars send their first cool light of evening, I am one with the drama of Purple Rain.

The remarkable thing is that I'm about 10 years too young to really remember Prince's great 80s heydey, but maybe this is part of the love. My images of the songs aren't overpowered by silly music videos or celebrity. I get to enjoy the music with my own associations, and the dramatic, leonine persona of The Artist without thinking how silly he looked with that curly, assymetrical mop of hair.

Finally, I leave you with this, because the people at GraphJam wouldn't put it up (although it clearly indicates vast comedic genius):




Here's the Key.
What are you blasting at Solstice?

Mini-Post

I found an article about interval training written for the layperson.