July 21: Hard Work, Honorable Mention, Siv Cedering, "A Raccoon"

She [Annie Ives] gave a talk about what hard work would get someone, and the kids either responded by clapping or they shouted insults, the most common being, "Oh yea, if education is so good for you, then what are you doing here?"  Because to some of them being there was the worst thing in the world.  And sometimes the kids laughed at her and cursed, or they stared at her blankly and she'd realized that many of them did not speak or understand English.

Annie Ives is an idealist, at least at this point in her life, before her son is murdered.  She still believes that she can make a difference in the world.  That's why she substitute teaches high school English for inner-city schools in New York.  She wants the kids to understand that there is something better for them.  Something that can be attained through hard work and perseverance.

It has been a long day.  Work kind of sucked, and now I'm sitting in my office at the university, typing this blog post.  When I checked my e-mail, I found a message from the nature writing contest I entered earlier this summer.  It seems I received honorable mention.  That means I came in third.

I'm happy that I placed, but I could have really used that prize money right now.  I knew that the essay wasn't my best work, so I'm not surprised at the outcome of the contest.  Yet, I'm still disappointed.  Tonight, I think that I would fall into the group of students who curse and laugh at Annie Ives when she talks about hard work being the key to success.  I've been working hard all my life--two jobs, blogging, parenting, writing--and I don't seem to be climbing any ladder of professional happiness.  Still on the bottom rung, one step away from "starting over" or "giving up completely."

Sorry, I'm feeling a little sorry for myself this evening.  I didn't sleep well last night, and I had to deal with a lot of difficult people in the medical office today.  In about a half hour, I'm going to be at a meeting of the contingent faculty at the university.  I don't think that I'm going to receive any news of monumental importance.  What I'm looking forward to:  the food and the alcohol.

So, to sum up Saint Marty's day:  crabby patients at work, third place in a writing contest, and shrimp quesadillas with Mike's Hard Lemonade for dinner.

And the Poet of the Week with roadkill. 

A Raccoon

by:  Siv Cedering

A raccoon lies broken
On the broken lines of a road.
Like the car that killed it.

I speed by.  I have seen the pain
In the small and pointed face
And blinked at the pink entrails

That trail from its belly.
But it is the paw that makes me
Stare.  What is there that makes the paw

Reach up? and the five fingers
At the end of the reach, bend
Like a hand?  They say

That animals are our innocence,
What we were before Eden
And the Fall.  Though I cannot

Understand it all, I stay on my side
Of the broken line that divides
The going from the coming.

How about a raccoon quesadilla?