Which Reminds Me

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H.A.L.T.

Sometimes, like this one right now,

I remember to halt and see

how one of these four things

is affecting me -

being hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.

I'm in the Y.U. library. Old time readers may recall that there was a good year that I came here because the home computer was down. Today, the home computer's fine (Thank G-d) (and thank you for asking). But, on my way home from Promotion Day I desired to pause in the library, to pause away from home.

Pause.

A friend just passed by and asked, "blogging?" And I said, "yes." Then I added, "I may be addicted." Then I added "It beats other addictions, like crack." Then I said, "I've tried both so I know."

Nothing like jokes that are in poor taste and not funny. Trust me, I'm a comedian.

I confess to being presently in a hungry and tired state (Michigan?). I will take the fifth regarding the middle two letters of the acronym. Most of my colleagues experienced some form of being up all night last night.

There are things in life that can be done the night before. And then there's test grading (followed by Maude) . Up until college there was no assignment that couldn't be taken care of the night before. Even in graduate school, much could be done on the sacred night before. But grading tests and then computing final grades takes just short of forever. And no matter how early you start you need the night before just to finish. And then you need the day after to finish for real.

Promotion Day is a "nice" idea. The kids come in and you tell them their final grades. There were some precious moments for me. The ninth grader who wrote on the back of her final that I was the best teacher she ever had told me that she wanted me to know that she really didn't write that for anyone else. Then there was a cool tenth grade boy who told me he loved learning life lessons from me and that when he thinks of or learns a life lesson over the summer - he will let me know by email or phone.

Mostly the day was about grunt work. I feel drained. And there's still overflow to finish. Miles to go before I sleep.

Which reminds me that on Tuesday night there was a reception for a teacher who's retiring after 30 years. She recited Robert Frost. It reminded me of a few years ago when the principal had us read an essay by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein that cited "miles to go before I sleep." The point of the assignment was to be inspired by Rav Aharon's passion. It struck me then, and now again, then Rav Aharon Lichtenstein's biggest fans are not generally fans of the literature he loves.

Which reminds me of the time that my friend bought Cliff Notes (sic) on TS Elliot because Rabbi Lichtenstein quoted him. Unfortunately, it turned out that he'd really quoted CS Lewis.

Which reminds me of the time that Rabbi Lichtenstein cited the philosopher Calvin and the philosopher Hobbes in the same lecture. And the students thought he was talking about the comic strip.

Which reminds me that movies from Comic Strips are usually not so good. Popeye wasn't. Dick Tracy wasn't. Annie was.

Which reminds me of one of the rules of improv; breaking patterns is interesting. Which reminds me that yesterday on NPR there was a story about improv in the classroom.

Which reminds me of when we had an in-service day and one of the options was yoga, and how great that was (*). Which reminds me of how important it is to breathe. Which reminds me that that Police song is not as nice as it sounds.

Did I mention that I'm hungry and tired?

When you're hungry most anything you eat tastes delicious. When I was interning as a therapist I had a client that used that word about experiences. I'd never heard that before. She was schizophrenic and mandated to have therapy in order to get medication. She wasn't a talker. So I asked her to draw. She drew the same picture over and over again; an elaborate gateway.

That same year I saw another client that used to scream at the top of her lungs for the whole session. I let her. The secretary next door didn't like that. My supervisor didn't care. No, really - she didn't care.

In my other internship I had a great supervisor; a mentor and friend. She called to offer me a job one day long after I'd graduated. I didn't take the job. I have a job. Thank G-d. A friend just told me that my work place is lucky to have me. What a nice thing to say - when you mean it.

Is it wrong to say something nice if you don't mean it? I recall back in elementary school in my favorite class we had a discussion one day about what to say if someone asks you if you like their shoes and you hate them (the shoes). There were many answers, but the one the teacher rewarded with his excitement was said by RK - and that was, "They're OK."

Which brings us back to that poem about Nice and Nice's cousins; Sweet, Neat, Satisfactory, and the deadly OK. I'm not sure you can get off the hook with OK today.

Is it true that OK stands for all correct as abbreviated by one of our presidents? You can read about that at Wikipedia, here.