Tonight I leave for a week along Turkey's ancient Mediterranean coast with almost all of the 6th grade (@ 70 kids) and 12 other adults. We are following the famous "Road to Ruins" according to my cool friend who has taught in Istanbul for the past four years. This particular road will lead us through Ephesus, Priene, Aphrodisias and Didyma where we'll view a wide range of ancient amphitheaters, temples, columns of the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian variety, agora, architraves, collapsed gates, no-longer-running fountains and (to the glee of the kids) ancient public latrines you can still sit on today (but not use.) The kids have each been researching one of the sites we will visit (34 in all, including the toilets!) and they will give a tour-guide-style speech on their particular topic. We have been practicing all week, and they know their stuff. As long as all the index cards make it into suitcases, I'll be happy. Once I know that's happened, the rest will be fairly painless. The adult-child ratio on this trip is ridiculously low. The only thing I have to worry about is making sure the kids know their pediments from their friezes and stop giggling whenever they have to say "Aphrodisias." (An ancient town with a stunning hippodrome, not a love potion.)
Massive numbers of pics to follow. Stay tuned...
The other thing is that I'm changing the name of the blog. Let me be clear that I love the name of the blog. My friend and former colleague Rapp convinced me that this was the name--there could be no other. Alas, I'm bending to the realities of our modern life and doing what I can to stay completely honest with y'all--and still get hired for future jobs, even though this is a chipper travelogue with some educational musing thrown in, and not a bitch session.
The more tech savvy among you will point out (correctly) that things stay cached in Google for years and years, and people may still be able to find this even if I do change the name. But I'm still going to do it. Because the attempt at anonymity should count for something. I'm not asking to be found if I call this RR of Arabia. Including my whole last name (along with pictures) just isn't trying that hard. Although, if you can convince me that the original name really isn't going to get me crossed off my dream job's shortlist (whatever that turns out to be), I will gleefully change it back.
FYI: you can find the blog by Googling my name + UAE or the now-former name (sigh) of this blog. You won't find it by just Googling my name.
8 years ago
3 comments:
Probably a good idea.
I still love that when I google your [first name][last name] plus UAE, te first search result is someone with your name who is interested in finding a local Mike Huckabee meetup. Ha!!!
Rachel, what's up? (well I guess I know exactly what's up after reading, so I'll start again)
Rachel, hi! Your sister gave me a link to your blog? It's a great read. Your life sounds pretty exciting at the moment. E-mail me sometime if you want me to catch up more. I don't think I've seen you since Cate. Funny since we were so close growing up, but I guess you don't hang around SoCal much anymore.
Re: your voting blog. That made me laugh. I'm trying to decipher my ballot now--less than a dissertation, I think, but not THAT much less. My goal for tomorrow is to systematically cancel all of your votes. I'm sure you don't mind, since I think I'm on the losing end of just about everything this time. Makes up for the years when we were little political junkies and I rubbed it in whenever my side won (which was pretty much always back then).
I looked at your pics. You don't seem to have changed much. (That's a compliment to a woman, right?) Holli Plummer saw my pic and said I looked like my Dad. Gaaaaahhhhh! She looked at my son (now 4) and said he looked more like the me she knew than I did. He's pretty adorable I think, so I guess at least she's saying I USED to be cute. Hahaha. But seriously, you look great.
Anyway, drop me a line. I'm at UCI working on my dissertation, splitting time between here and Geneva where my experiment is. I'm benedicb@uci.edu
--BRIAN
Okay, so I'm writing a lot because I just read 3 months of your blogs (which are totally cool) and catching up on comments.
I noticed you haven't written since August about (as Pres GHWB 41 would say) "the passion thing". I'm curious if you've answered the questions you had in August, or more precisely, if you've found the questions you were looking for.
http://rayroberson.blogspot.com/2008/08/what-is-question.html
Here are a some questions (or comments disguised as questions):
Does being advantaged make you a winner as you wrote? What about the converse? Your deeds suggest one answer (the nobler one I think), while the words in your blog suggest you indulge in sharing the kids underlying anger at perceived injustice. Does that serve them well? I suspect you already know this very well, but underlying attitudes can be pernicious things that undermine our efforts without realizing it. While we strive to achieve a society with more equal opportunity, can it ever be achieved? We know society has always and will always start us out on unequal footing. And aren't some people also more or less blessed by God in their internal capabilities and passions.So given all that, how should you as a person (and how should society as a whole) define success? Is it the quantity (which is heavily impacted by external factors) or the quality of our results (which is more up to us) that matters in the end? Some "points of light" shine brighter than others, but are the many smaller contributions less valuable than the few bigs ones? So how do you help your kids discover what success means to them so that they want to work to develop the tools they will need to achieve it? Is this fundamental goal really any different where you are now than where you were before? Do you play a good hand with any less passion than you play a tougher hand? You seem to have demonstrated not just passion but also a lot of skill in playing the tough hand. Now that you're in better circumstances, are you lacking the passion or just the skills to best play the good hand? If it's just a new skill set you need, you are certainly smart enough to pick it up in short order. In a few months, you may already have largely done so?
You and I share a lot of the same blessings. We both grew up decidedly middle class and then found ourselves in a very privileged environment for a few years? We had parents who cared deeply about our education. You now have kids who are probably pretty similar to how we were. Can't you just look back and see how some of our teachers most helped us? I can think of several teachers we shared that applied a passion to teaching middle- and upper-class kids that really influenced us for the better. And I can think of a couple negative examples, too, which teach us lessons of their own. You may have already come to grips with all this which is why you haven't felt compelled to write about it. Still, I'm curious how you've progressed on that. I envy you your challenges, especially in the 5 years working in the city. Not that I'd give up my own to trade with you. Just that I'd love to have a few years to teach the kids who need it most. Obviously social studies isn't my thing, but they probably need science, too. I really hope that some day I will, at least for a year or two.
And what's up with you and the zen thing? Are you just speaking generally about your efforts to let go of things outside your control or are you specifically studying that art? The military pushes a very stoic philosophy which is not terribly different in practice. As for improving life-management skills, I totally like Covey's books. He's so popular, he's become cliche and kind of a joke to some, but I totally like the basis of what he says. He directly addresses a lot of the stuff you're working on.
Anyway, I should probably do some work for a while instead of writing long comments on your blog.
--B
Post a Comment