November 17: Big Party, Classroom Observations, Issa, Two Haiku, Off the Top of My Head

On December 29, 1982, there had been a big party in the boardroom, and it was attended by many of the old-timers like Ives himself--Crane, Silverman, Schamberg--and Mr. Mannis, having survived his third open-heart operation, made a speech.  They had given Ives a watch--a gold Swiss pocket watch from the 1920s, engraved with his name on the back (to go into a drawer along with the watch he had intended to give his son long ago at Christmas)--and a plaque.

Ives is a respected advertising executive.  Over the years, he has fostered the work of younger artists and Spanish-speaking employees.  By the time he retires, Ives' hair has turned white, and he feels outdated.  Tired.  Ives knows that he isn't Norman Rockwell or Andy Warhol.  Yet, in his own small way, he has changed the world.  For that, he is proud.

This morning, a full-time professor came to my Good Books class to observe me.  I have been teaching at the university for 23 years now.  That's a lot of hours standing in front of classrooms over the past two decades.  I shouldn't get nervous.  Yet, I didn't sleep well last night, and I could barely think straight when I finally climbed out of bed at 4 a.m. for work.

That being said, the classroom observation went really well.  My students participated, asked questions, pretended to be interested.  The full-timer who observed me seemed impressed.  As he was leaving, he said that he was going to use one of my teaching techniques in his own class next semester.  I think that bodes well for my written evaluation.

So, I am thankful this evening that my classroom observation is over.  I am thankful that it went well, and that my evaluator responded to my lesson plan.

Saint Marty is also exhausted.  Too little sleep.  Too much worry.

Two Haiku

by:  Issa

     Napped half the day;
no one
     punished me!


     The toad!  It looks like
it could belch
     a cloud.

Off the Top of My Head

November 16: Poets of the Week, Buson, Two Haiku, "Ives" Dip, Off the Top of My Head

For the first time, I have decided to award Poet of the Week to three writers.  Three masters of haiku--Basho, Buson, and Issa.

I have never been able to write a successful haiku, but I have always admired them.  The concentration of image.  The surprise of the final line.  There's so much possibility for humor and beauty.  Making the ordinary extraordinary.  Buson does all of that.

Two Haiku

by:  Buson

     His Holiness the Abbott
is shitting
     in the withered fields.


     Cover my head
or my feet?
     the winter quilt.


See what I mean?  When I came across that first one, I literally laughed out loud in my office at the university.  A grad student was walking by my door at the time and did a double take.  That's alright.  I'm already known as the guy who plays Christmas music all year long, so I'm just five cats away from being the English Department's certifiable eccentric.

Speaking of the English Department, tomorrow morning I have a guest coming to my Good Books class to do my annual evaluation.  Now, I've recently learned that I have been teaching for 46 semesters at the university as a contingent professor.  Doing the math, that is exactly 23 years of teaching.  I shouldn't get nervous about classroom observations any more.  Yet, my inner Catholic schoolboy always gets the best of me, and I spend a few weeks being anxious and guilty.

So, my question for this evening's Ives dip is:

Will my classroom observation go well tomorrow morning?

And the answer from Oscar Hijuelos is:

As they happily walked to the subway, they were looking forward to spending a lot of time together at home during the holiday, in the company of family and friends.  Ives and Annie stopped to peer into a window display of French linen when, just like that, a terrible darkness entered them, and they could not move and stood looking at one another stupidly, on the crowded and busy sidewalk.

Okay, the first half of that passage points toward a really good evaluation.  However, the second half is a little Stephen Kingish in feeling and tone.  So, either everything's going to go great tomorrow morning, or I'm going to be attacked by a rabid Saint Bernard on the way to class.

Saint Marty isn't sure which answer he prefers.

Off the Top of My Head

 

June 12: Gold Hamilton, Nature Essay, Juggling Fairy Tale, Michael Mlekoday, "Self Portrait, Downtown"

Roaming through the aisles, Ives had picked up some half-dozen ties and wallets for certain male friends, a scarf for his brother, and a nice French hat for his sister Kate.  That year he had decided on buying Robert a good watch and prevailed upon an overwhelmed saleswoman to pull some twenty watches out of a case, before he settled on a black-banded gold Hamilton with Roman numerals, suitable, Ives had thought, for a young man headed to a seminary.

Ives never gives that watch to Robert.  Within a couple of hours, Ives will be standing on a sidewalk in front of a church, staring down at the pavement, into the shocked expression of his murdered son.  Ives' life is on a collision course with tragedy.  A sledgehammer of change.

This past month, I have been amazed how quickly the trajectory of life can veer in an unexpected direction.  I thought this summer was going to be calm, easy.  I would have time to write, read, clean out my attic.  Yet, in the space of a few weeks, my summer has been completely transformed.  I now am putting myself in debt for another five years to put a new roof on my house.  I don't even know what's wrong with my car, and I still have a huge hole in my kitchen ceiling.

I know you're all probably tired of hearing about these subjects.  Sorry.  These are things I fall asleep and wake up thinking about.  I'm actually thinking that I need to get another part-time job or sell some organs to raise a few extra dollars.  All this worry is exhausting.

I finished writing my nature essay a couple of days ago.  Put it in an envelope and mailed it yesterday to the contest.  It's over and done.  And the best I can say about the essay is that it's done.  It's not great.  In fact, I considered not submitting it at all.  I've just been so preoccupied this past month that I didn't devote as much energy to my writing.  The result was an essay that's alright.  Not great.  Certainly not worth $250.

It feels like I'm very scattered.  My life is in fragments at the moment.  I haven't been able to concentrate.  Perhaps, after I find out what's wrong with my car and the roofers are stripping my house of shingles, I'll be able to carve out a little peace of mind.  Not right now, though.

Once upon a time, a juggler named Freego lived in a small village on the shores of a beautiful lake.  Freego was the worst juggler that had ever lived.  He could only juggle one ball at a time because he lacked concentration.  He would stand in the village square and throw his ball in the air over and over.  Nobody stopped to watch Freego's act.

One day, Freego decided he needed to learn how to juggle two balls.  All day and all night, he practiced at home.  He threw balls, caught balls, dropped balls.  After many months, Freego thought it was time to unveil his new, improved juggling act.

He went to the village square and called out, "Watch the Great Freego defy the laws of gravity!"

A crowd gathered as Freego took his balls out of his pocket.  He took a deep breath and tossed his balls in the air.  One ball flew into the face of the village baker.  The other ball fell into the village well.

The crowd slowly dispersed, and Freego went home, humiliated.

Moral of the story:  don't play with your balls in public.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Self Portrait, Downtown

by:  Michael Mlekoday

We left because we were lost and broken.
The sun rode us like donkeys.  Our hooves
turned colors in the dust.  Shush, you said,
every time I dropped a mirror and it broke
into song.  It's the only way I could see
myself in fragments, which I think is how
the earliest surgeons studied before cutting.
Where were we going?  Maybe the woods,
maybe Detroit.  There's a way in which
the thick skin of air in the woods hangs
like sweat in the inner city.  I've mistaken
drops of air conditioner exhaust for rain
while leaning against apartment brick,
watching a fistfight bloom in mid-July,
the highway humming in the distance
like the time you kicked a hive and smiled.
I lied.  We didn't really leave, and broken
is just another way of saying we left shards
and splinters of ourselves everywhere,
like kids trying to leave a trail back home.
We're still here, right here, and here,
this debris makes the street glitter like a river.

Nope.  Not me.

November 6: Old Thurmer, Observation, Prep

"Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too," I said.  "There was this one old guy, Mr. Spencer.  His wife was always giving you hot chocolate and all that stuff, and there were really pretty nice.  But you should've seen him when the headmaster, old Thurmer, came in the history class and sat down in the back of the room.  He was always coming in and sitting down in the back of the room for about a half an hour.  He was supposed to be incognito or something.  After a while, he'd be sitting back there and then he'd start interrupting what old Spencer was saying to crack a lot of corny jokes.  Old Spencer'd practically kill himself chuckling and smiling and all, like Old Thurmer was a goddam prince or something."

Yes, Mr. Spencer, Holden's history teacher, has to be observed by Old Thurmer, Pencey Prep's headmaster.  Spencer has to pretend he's not nervous or annoyed.  Thurmer is his boss.  He could stand up in front of the classroom and attempt to fart Handel's Messiah, and Spencer would have to give him a standing ovation.

I'm going to be observed tomorrow in my classroom.  By a professor to whom I've never met or spoken with.  The extent or our communication has been a couple of e-mails.  He told me not to be nervous, that it really wasn't a big deal.  Funny thing is, it feels like a big deal to me.

That's my worry this Wednesday.  Someone is coming into my classroom to assess my teaching.  I've done as much as I can to prep for tomorrow afternoon.  I've got two lesson plans.  I've got backups to those two lesson plans.  I've got backups to the backups.  My whole goal is to not look like an idiot.  That's it.  I don't expect to be Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.  I don't expect to be anything but . . .  mediocre to competent.

Saint Marty can live with mediocre.  He'd be thrilled with competent.

Hopefully, I'll be at my mediocre best tomorrow

November 5: Concern for Your Future, Observation, Prayer for Strength

"Do you feel absolutely no concern for your future, boy?"

Holden's teacher, Old Spencer, poses this question to Holden at the beginning of Catcher.  Spencer's trying to "put some sense" into  Holden's head.  After all, Pencey Prep is the latest in a line of schools Holden has flunked out of.  The future is not in the forefront of Holden's priorities, to say the least.

I am the exact opposite of Holden.  The future is constantly in my thoughts.  And that is just as unhealthy as not giving a crap about the future.  It causes sleepless nights.  Anxious days.  Distraction.  Unhappiness.  Plagues of frogs.  You get the idea.

My current cause for anxiety is a classroom observation.  As part of my yearly evaluation at the university, I must be observed by a full-time faculty member.  My number is up this Thursday.  I will have a guest in the back of my classroom, taking notes, watching my every move, waiting for me to make mistakes.

OK, I'm exaggerating.  The guy is simply there to do a job.  He told me not to get worried or stressed.  However, being the kind of person I am (Type AAA), I can't really follow his advice.  I have to prepare a lesson plan that makes me look good.  Or at least intelligent.  At the very least, I want to look like I know what I'm doing.

That's my goal.  That's my prayer.

Dear God,

Sometimes I think of You as the guy in the back of my classroom, taking notes on my screwed-up life.  That's not a very comforting image, and it's probably not very accurate, to boot.  Unfortunately, I grew up eating helpings of guilt every day.  I can't help myself.

In the next couple of days, could You please help me out?  I need some strength and courage to make it through my class observation on Thursday.  I'm a good teacher.  I know that.  I shouldn't be worried.  I know that, too.  But, again, I can't help myself.  I'm hardwired for worry, stress.  I can't help myself.

So, strength.  Give me strength.  And confidence.  I could use some of that, too.  Strength and confidence.  You did it for Moses.

Your loving child,

Saint Marty

Chapter One:  How to Not Shit Yourself