patience...
it's not about holding on,
it's about letting go.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
i wish i was a porno star
no, i don't.
but on "fresh air" today, some singer was interviewed (sorry, so sketchy on details). he was born in germany, and grew up listening to american show tunes. his english wasn't always so good, so apparently he misinterpreted certain lyrics. example (hard to believe): judy garland in "wizard of oz":
the "true" lyrics?: "i wish i wish upon a star..."
this guy's misinterpretation: "i wish i was a porno star..."
actually, the latter (mis)interpretation betrays, not a failing in english, but a wicked sense of humor...
funny, but if you take that disney song sung by that cricket (oh, my conscience is buzzing!), and make a similar modification, boy does it change the meaning of the song!
"when you wish a porno star
makes no difference who you are
anything your heart desires will
come to you."
but on "fresh air" today, some singer was interviewed (sorry, so sketchy on details). he was born in germany, and grew up listening to american show tunes. his english wasn't always so good, so apparently he misinterpreted certain lyrics. example (hard to believe): judy garland in "wizard of oz":
the "true" lyrics?: "i wish i wish upon a star..."
this guy's misinterpretation: "i wish i was a porno star..."
actually, the latter (mis)interpretation betrays, not a failing in english, but a wicked sense of humor...
funny, but if you take that disney song sung by that cricket (oh, my conscience is buzzing!), and make a similar modification, boy does it change the meaning of the song!
"when you wish a porno star
makes no difference who you are
anything your heart desires will
come to you."
straw
just pretend for a moment
that the world was suspended by
a single golden thread
the tensile strength debatable
and the light dancing upon its near
invisible shimmer
could be concealing the
strain of a billion billion tons
and 6(?) billion human lives
pulling it beyond its limits.
yes, let's pretend
this disco ball earth's about to fall
off the roof of the sky
like caramel off the palate
dislodged by an arcing tongue
and, like the caramel,
the only way is to go down
and melt.
it's only a matter of time
before that golden thread snaps.
what to do in the meantime,
spin dizzy upon our spinning dizzy world
make as thought the grass is rushing to meet
our tumble
delay another day
the inevitable end.
who am i to see that golden thread
and if i could
if it wasn't just pretend
what would i do?
grab hold of it
as though the strength of my grip
could keep my world hanging intact
one second more?
that would be pretending.
no, i am the caramel camel
that breaks the
last straw.
that the world was suspended by
a single golden thread
the tensile strength debatable
and the light dancing upon its near
invisible shimmer
could be concealing the
strain of a billion billion tons
and 6(?) billion human lives
pulling it beyond its limits.
yes, let's pretend
this disco ball earth's about to fall
off the roof of the sky
like caramel off the palate
dislodged by an arcing tongue
and, like the caramel,
the only way is to go down
and melt.
it's only a matter of time
before that golden thread snaps.
what to do in the meantime,
spin dizzy upon our spinning dizzy world
make as thought the grass is rushing to meet
our tumble
delay another day
the inevitable end.
who am i to see that golden thread
and if i could
if it wasn't just pretend
what would i do?
grab hold of it
as though the strength of my grip
could keep my world hanging intact
one second more?
that would be pretending.
no, i am the caramel camel
that breaks the
last straw.
muscles of the eyes
here's another cool experiment, confirming ties in your body that you might not have been aware of. it's actually from "anatomy trains," though the relationships have been "known" by chinese from antiquity.
in the suboccipital region (the soft tissue just below the base of the skull) are such points as GB 12 and GB 20. GB 20 has long been known by the chinese as a point affecting vision. i always attributed this tie to the fact that the optical centers of the brain are primarily located "within the occiput." but there is a more direct (and interesting) tie.
for this experiment, place your hands on the back of your head, like you are doing a sit-up. feel with your fingers for the soft tissue just below the occiput (the hard rim of bone at the base of your skull). now, close your eyes. while your eyes are closed, look to the left, look to the right, look up, look down. WITHOUT moving your head, you should feel muscles subtly roll beneath your fingers. cool, huh?
apparently, there is an ancient tie between the muscles controlling the eyes and the muscles at the bottom of the skull... it has something to do with the way infants need to raise their necks (hyperextend) in order to "see the world" when they first begin to crawl... also has something to do with the way a cat thrown into the air will always manage to land on its feet- apparently, the eyes detect the level horizon (or some other landmark) and, via the muscles at the back of the skull, TURN the body to orient it feet down. INTERESTING...
i've heard it said that the reason some blind people (like stevie wonder) have a characteristic hyperextension of the neck when they play is because the lack of vision breaks the feedback loop that tells seeing people at what level to orient their heads... not sure if that is necessarily true, but an interesting line of thought.
in the suboccipital region (the soft tissue just below the base of the skull) are such points as GB 12 and GB 20. GB 20 has long been known by the chinese as a point affecting vision. i always attributed this tie to the fact that the optical centers of the brain are primarily located "within the occiput." but there is a more direct (and interesting) tie.
for this experiment, place your hands on the back of your head, like you are doing a sit-up. feel with your fingers for the soft tissue just below the occiput (the hard rim of bone at the base of your skull). now, close your eyes. while your eyes are closed, look to the left, look to the right, look up, look down. WITHOUT moving your head, you should feel muscles subtly roll beneath your fingers. cool, huh?
apparently, there is an ancient tie between the muscles controlling the eyes and the muscles at the bottom of the skull... it has something to do with the way infants need to raise their necks (hyperextend) in order to "see the world" when they first begin to crawl... also has something to do with the way a cat thrown into the air will always manage to land on its feet- apparently, the eyes detect the level horizon (or some other landmark) and, via the muscles at the back of the skull, TURN the body to orient it feet down. INTERESTING...
i've heard it said that the reason some blind people (like stevie wonder) have a characteristic hyperextension of the neck when they play is because the lack of vision breaks the feedback loop that tells seeing people at what level to orient their heads... not sure if that is necessarily true, but an interesting line of thought.
the ears of ancient fish
hey, did you know that certain "ancient fish" (like the shark) "hear" with the lateral sides of their bodies? it's true. the sides of sharks actually detect subtle vibrations as sharks "undulate" in a lateral swimming motion. this allows them to "hear" the movements of prey, and perhaps target them more accurately.
how is this relevant in any way?
well, in acupuncture, there is a channel called the Gallbladder channel that runs along the lateral sides of the body (in a rough zigzag pattern), eventually ending at the front of the ear. The GB channel has an affinity with the ear, and some points on it are used to treat problems like tinnitus. That's no surprise to most acupuncturists, as points like GB 2 are perhaps the most proximal (called "local") points to the ear. However, according to Kiiko Matsumoto and David Euler, points like GB 22 and GB 23, located on the lateral rib cage actually have a stronger effect on the ear, largely because, embryonicly, the same tissues that develop into the "ears" of ancient fish develop into the lateral sides of the ribcage. the connection between ears and the side of the body, the argument goes, is preserved via the acupuncture meridians...
cool, huh?
how is this relevant in any way?
well, in acupuncture, there is a channel called the Gallbladder channel that runs along the lateral sides of the body (in a rough zigzag pattern), eventually ending at the front of the ear. The GB channel has an affinity with the ear, and some points on it are used to treat problems like tinnitus. That's no surprise to most acupuncturists, as points like GB 2 are perhaps the most proximal (called "local") points to the ear. However, according to Kiiko Matsumoto and David Euler, points like GB 22 and GB 23, located on the lateral rib cage actually have a stronger effect on the ear, largely because, embryonicly, the same tissues that develop into the "ears" of ancient fish develop into the lateral sides of the ribcage. the connection between ears and the side of the body, the argument goes, is preserved via the acupuncture meridians...
cool, huh?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
mudgun
peel earth like
smooth giant brown fingernails
the severed surfaces are almost shiny
ming vase shiny
cracking only when the weight
and the angle of the sheet
betrays it.
the soil,
such that it is,
demands working.
nothing grows in the earth
that hasn't been turned
and folded over
and mixed in with itself.
space is necessary,
even where the sun doesn't shine,
space between the molecules,
space between atoms.
it's a principle of the universe,
really.
and, like it or not,
someone uses the mudgun on me
when i least suspect
finding my bones
and my other fictions of solidity
peeling my layers away
so that something else,
weeds, maybe
or maybe the next great gold harvest
can grow.
smooth giant brown fingernails
the severed surfaces are almost shiny
ming vase shiny
cracking only when the weight
and the angle of the sheet
betrays it.
the soil,
such that it is,
demands working.
nothing grows in the earth
that hasn't been turned
and folded over
and mixed in with itself.
space is necessary,
even where the sun doesn't shine,
space between the molecules,
space between atoms.
it's a principle of the universe,
really.
and, like it or not,
someone uses the mudgun on me
when i least suspect
finding my bones
and my other fictions of solidity
peeling my layers away
so that something else,
weeds, maybe
or maybe the next great gold harvest
can grow.
apologies...
sorry i haven't been writing as frequently (actually, some of you might consider this a reprieve...). i've been a bit busy.
aiden had his fourth birthday this past sunday. while it was nice to have the family and family friends over, i can't help but feel that we tend to short change aiden on his birthdays. he's happy and all, he gets to play with his cousins and he gets a whole new set of toys (cars, construction vehicles, trains, wall-e) to play with. but we (i) don't put in as much effort, particularly when compared with what i used to do for willow at the same age. maybe i have less effort to put in...
while i'm making excuses for myself, i could say that our biggest concern since returning home from maui was aiden's "walking pneumonia." well, since employing the antibiotics, it's been a progressive improvement... but there was still a lot of concern, and, on my part, not a little guilt. a little more than midway through our maui trip, lynn kept mentioning that she was concerned that aiden had pneumonia or something. i kept discounting it because aiden's coughing, while frequent and sleep-disturbing, were not productive in the least (a criterion, usually, of pneumonia). still, aiden's listlessness and coughing did concern me, even at that time... but i insisted that all he needed was more rest, and we could continue the trip... upon taking aiden in the following monday, boy was i feeling bad when vince (and subsequent chest xrays) discovered that one of aiden's lung lobes was "solid" with mucus/fluid...
lynn and i actually got into a mild argument this past week. like most things, it was the result of misunderstandings and miscommunication (uncommunicated feelings)... we were still "suffering" through aiden's pneumonia, and at one point, in the wee hours of an anonymous night, aiden woke me up with complaints of congestion. so, as i always did, i took him into the shower with me, hoping the steam would help to break up some of his congestion... while i was in the bathroom, lynn questioned me: "is it alright to take him in there, with his pneumonia?" i think i was still feeling guilty over my lax judgments on aiden's condition, and took lynn's question as another nagging critique, i.e. "are you just doing that to get him to shut up and go to sleep? do you really care whether you are making his condition better or worse?" so i just didn't answer lynn. bad move.
the next day i discovered lynn in a bad mood, without really suspecting why. it was only later that evening that things sort of exploded... (funny how the kids sense things, and try to ameliorate, being on their best behavior, and pointing it out to distract us). during a reluctant disclosure session, i told lynn how i was feeling guilty about the whole thing, and that i thought lynn believed that i "didn't really care about aiden, that i was always just doing the expedient thing." and since i carried that thought around, i was feeling like a wounded animal, and any question or critique from lynn felt like salt... i confessed that, honestly, i wasn't sure of myself half the time, and that i hoped i was being a good father and doing the right thing, but the whole pneumonia thing made me wonder... lynn, half to tears, reassured me that she had never once thought that i "didn't care." she told me that i was a good father. she told me that i just needed to communicate more, so that the two of us would at least be on the same page when dealing with our kids...
all in all, a "good" argument. we rarely argue, lynn and i, but at least when we do, it ultimately ends in some kind of "compost session" that makes our relationship deeper and richer.
***
today, i finished my third assignment for my online special education course. it was supposed to be a "legal synthesis" on some topic from nclb (no child left behind) or idea 2004 (individuals with disabilities in education act). my topic was "research based instruction." this was a phrase coined by the authors of nclb, and reflects the bias or assumption of nclb as a whole, that "science" can solve our educational achievement gaps. (i can just hear double-yuh saying it: "why don't we throw some science at it. make things all scientific.")
it was funny how neatly and nicely this assumption was invalidated. "reading recovery," a remedial reading program designed in new zealand and currently held in high regard internationally, was endorsed by the us doe because it met the standard of "effective scientifically based peer reviewed" intervention methods. and yet: science is, ultimately, a human produced cultural phenomenon, and humans are self-serving and fallible creatures. turns out that the "science" backing "reading recovery" had been skewed in its favor. although "reading recovery" had been touted as a remedial reading program for the lowest performing students at the end of grade one, apparently, several studies had discounted these very students (approximately 25-40% of the subjects) to make the end results "look good."
so much for "science."
my next paper for the online course is to be a "now and then" paper on some topic in special education. haven't even begun to think about what i'm going to write about, but i'm thankfully very ahead of schedule. i hope to get all assignments for the online course done so that next week, when i start my second summer course, i'll have a clean slate...
***
the "anatomy trains" book is awesome. i'm almost done with it, although it's one thing to read a book, and another thing entirely to "embody" the information. myers draws from so many sources, and has so many insights, it's hard to distill it into something concretely practice-able. but i will definitely try.
one thing i'd like to explore (again) is feldenkrais and "somatics" and other movement awareness therapies. i think it would be fun to explore the subtle neuromuscular connections within me... just don't know if i can apply this to my patients...
i have vague ideas about increasing my lung capacity via movement and breath awareness... somehow i am hoping it will make me some kind of better singer. AS IF. i think even with enough air, my vocal chords are now faulty instruments, with only daring approximations for certain pitches. but i can dream, can't i?
***
well. sorry. got to go.
aiden had his fourth birthday this past sunday. while it was nice to have the family and family friends over, i can't help but feel that we tend to short change aiden on his birthdays. he's happy and all, he gets to play with his cousins and he gets a whole new set of toys (cars, construction vehicles, trains, wall-e) to play with. but we (i) don't put in as much effort, particularly when compared with what i used to do for willow at the same age. maybe i have less effort to put in...
while i'm making excuses for myself, i could say that our biggest concern since returning home from maui was aiden's "walking pneumonia." well, since employing the antibiotics, it's been a progressive improvement... but there was still a lot of concern, and, on my part, not a little guilt. a little more than midway through our maui trip, lynn kept mentioning that she was concerned that aiden had pneumonia or something. i kept discounting it because aiden's coughing, while frequent and sleep-disturbing, were not productive in the least (a criterion, usually, of pneumonia). still, aiden's listlessness and coughing did concern me, even at that time... but i insisted that all he needed was more rest, and we could continue the trip... upon taking aiden in the following monday, boy was i feeling bad when vince (and subsequent chest xrays) discovered that one of aiden's lung lobes was "solid" with mucus/fluid...
lynn and i actually got into a mild argument this past week. like most things, it was the result of misunderstandings and miscommunication (uncommunicated feelings)... we were still "suffering" through aiden's pneumonia, and at one point, in the wee hours of an anonymous night, aiden woke me up with complaints of congestion. so, as i always did, i took him into the shower with me, hoping the steam would help to break up some of his congestion... while i was in the bathroom, lynn questioned me: "is it alright to take him in there, with his pneumonia?" i think i was still feeling guilty over my lax judgments on aiden's condition, and took lynn's question as another nagging critique, i.e. "are you just doing that to get him to shut up and go to sleep? do you really care whether you are making his condition better or worse?" so i just didn't answer lynn. bad move.
the next day i discovered lynn in a bad mood, without really suspecting why. it was only later that evening that things sort of exploded... (funny how the kids sense things, and try to ameliorate, being on their best behavior, and pointing it out to distract us). during a reluctant disclosure session, i told lynn how i was feeling guilty about the whole thing, and that i thought lynn believed that i "didn't really care about aiden, that i was always just doing the expedient thing." and since i carried that thought around, i was feeling like a wounded animal, and any question or critique from lynn felt like salt... i confessed that, honestly, i wasn't sure of myself half the time, and that i hoped i was being a good father and doing the right thing, but the whole pneumonia thing made me wonder... lynn, half to tears, reassured me that she had never once thought that i "didn't care." she told me that i was a good father. she told me that i just needed to communicate more, so that the two of us would at least be on the same page when dealing with our kids...
all in all, a "good" argument. we rarely argue, lynn and i, but at least when we do, it ultimately ends in some kind of "compost session" that makes our relationship deeper and richer.
***
today, i finished my third assignment for my online special education course. it was supposed to be a "legal synthesis" on some topic from nclb (no child left behind) or idea 2004 (individuals with disabilities in education act). my topic was "research based instruction." this was a phrase coined by the authors of nclb, and reflects the bias or assumption of nclb as a whole, that "science" can solve our educational achievement gaps. (i can just hear double-yuh saying it: "why don't we throw some science at it. make things all scientific.")
it was funny how neatly and nicely this assumption was invalidated. "reading recovery," a remedial reading program designed in new zealand and currently held in high regard internationally, was endorsed by the us doe because it met the standard of "effective scientifically based peer reviewed" intervention methods. and yet: science is, ultimately, a human produced cultural phenomenon, and humans are self-serving and fallible creatures. turns out that the "science" backing "reading recovery" had been skewed in its favor. although "reading recovery" had been touted as a remedial reading program for the lowest performing students at the end of grade one, apparently, several studies had discounted these very students (approximately 25-40% of the subjects) to make the end results "look good."
so much for "science."
my next paper for the online course is to be a "now and then" paper on some topic in special education. haven't even begun to think about what i'm going to write about, but i'm thankfully very ahead of schedule. i hope to get all assignments for the online course done so that next week, when i start my second summer course, i'll have a clean slate...
***
the "anatomy trains" book is awesome. i'm almost done with it, although it's one thing to read a book, and another thing entirely to "embody" the information. myers draws from so many sources, and has so many insights, it's hard to distill it into something concretely practice-able. but i will definitely try.
one thing i'd like to explore (again) is feldenkrais and "somatics" and other movement awareness therapies. i think it would be fun to explore the subtle neuromuscular connections within me... just don't know if i can apply this to my patients...
i have vague ideas about increasing my lung capacity via movement and breath awareness... somehow i am hoping it will make me some kind of better singer. AS IF. i think even with enough air, my vocal chords are now faulty instruments, with only daring approximations for certain pitches. but i can dream, can't i?
***
well. sorry. got to go.
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