Emerson's Wisdom

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, (attributed)
US essayist & poet (1803 - 1882)


Emerson knew what he was talking about... MOVE ON. Joy in the Journey and Joy in each new day!

Zaftig

How I wish to be zaftig!
(isn't this a fun word? I think it should be used more!)
zaftig
\ZAHF-tig\ adjective
: having a full rounded figure : pleasingly plump

Trasmogrify

A source of inspiration and pondering.....

The Word of the Day for March 03, 2010 on Merriam and Webster's online dictionary:

Transmogrify: /transs-MAH-gruh-fye/: to change of alter greatly and often with grotesque or humorous effect.

Example: I like to transmogrify the apartment with a good scrub down now and then.

My sentence="I have been transmogrified this past year"

Did you know?

We know that the prefix "trans-" means "across" or "beyond" and appears in many words that evoke change, such as "transform" and "transpire," but we don't know the exact origins of "transmogrify." The 17th-century dramatist, novelist, and poet Aphra Behn, who is regarded as England's first female professional writer, was among the first English authors to use the word. In her 1671 comic play The Amorous Prince, Behn wrote, "I wou'd Love would transmogriphy me to a maid now." A century later, Scottish poet Robert Burns plied the word again in verse, aptly capturing the grotesque and sometimes humorous effect of transmogrification: "Social life and Glee sit down, . . . Till, quite transmugrify'd, they're grown Debauchery and Drinking."

See transmogrify">Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary

Poem: The Mother

I came across this poem in an english class and thought it was really powerful. See what you think. It may change your opinion about abortion.

The Mother
by Gwendolyn Brooks
Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get, The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair, The singers and workers that never handled the air. You will never neglect or beat Them, or silence or buy with a sweet. You will never wind up the sucking-thumb Or scuttle off ghosts that come. You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh, Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye. I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children. I have contracted. I have eased My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck. I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized Your luck And your lives from your unfinished reach, If I stole your births and your names, Your straight baby tears and your games, Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths, If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths, Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate. Though why should I whine, Whine that the crime was other than mine?-- Since anyhow you are dead. Or rather, or instead, You were never made. But that too, I am afraid, Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said? You were born, you had body, you died. It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried. Believe me, I loved you all. Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you All.

GUESS: What is the record number of children born to one woman?

Now take a second to guess.... how many children to you think one woman has (been legitimately recorded) to have?

24?

Oh no much higher, a professor of mine has a neighbor with this many kids....

32?

38?

Higher than that....

44?

50?

Even higher still....

And the answer is...................................69!!!

It's true! All of the births were witnessed and recorded! The woman was a Russian peasant in the eighteenth century. She had 27 total pregnancies:

• 16 pairs of twins
• 7 sets of triplets
• four sets of quadrupletlets

The most amazing part is that 54 out of her 69 children survived to adulthood!

Don't believe me? Well it's true! Search it online or get a hold of an old World Records Book!

The current world-record holder in this same category is a South American woman. She had, count 'em, 64 children! (*Although only 55 were witnessed births and are "verified" as hers).

Blog Revival!

So I have decided to use my blog, yes use it and actually post. I have hesitated doing so in the past because I didn't feel like I had anything interesting or that I wanted to post.

BUT

I have decided that I DO want to post. It won't like a journal, post topics and format won't be consistent, in fact they may all over the board, but that is me. My blog is going to be a place for.... whatever I want! I'll post things that I want to remember or share, that were funny, interesting, or politically charged. Maybe like an electronic scrapbook recording scraps and tidbits of my life.

Final Project: Podcasting/audio projects

Students like to talk. Students like to do things themselves and students like to see results. For these and other reasons I thought a good final project would be to explore podcasting.

Most of my project included hours of me in front of the computer "getting to know" garageband/other applications, reading about podcasting, creating and online library account to upload my audio files to a server and just figuring out the logistics and practical use of this technology.

I also created a lesson plan, assignment sheet and instruction sheet for my students if and when I actually do this project.... one day.... in my classroom.

Click HERE to see the assignments list on my class website where you can find this podcasting assignment and the demo I made.