a bloody dove and the rocky road

its all so painfully surreal - all this loss occuring all around the world. i watched a newsclip of a rescue scene this am: some paramedics performing chest compressions on a man who was in a car that broad-sided a moving train. it made me cry.

and then i change the channel, just in time to see some mexican fisherman (a crewman of some giant spanish fishing armada) fling a giant sea turtle off the side of the boat, into the water - to its death.

and then i change the channel and hear about all the deaths in afghanistan and iraq. and then i just push the best button the remote offers me: OFF.




and ... i try to live with that unnerving anxiety that, those i love will die before i see them again. or that someone will do something ghastly to me in my sleep. all of these people killed suddenly - i bet their loved ones expected to see them once more ... those that slept in the dormatory - i'll bet they didn't wonder what they would do if a crazy dude with a glock got into their room and started shooting them. i will go crazy if i perseverate on this. but - in a chilling and twisted way, its a fascinating thread of thought. and precisely the meaning i load into that phrase i love to utter - 'one never knows.'

i want to hear and feel and see some good news, for a change. is there any?



i cannot watch TV, save for those ridiculous things like trailer park boys, rick mercer, this hour has 22 minutes, little mosque on the prairie, corner gas, robson arms. anything else i watch seems dripping with loss, violence, carnage, cruelty. for sure - any and every news cast makes the silent tears flow. all this collective grief, i feel it, @ times, coursing thru my veins.

it almost all makes me wanna go out there, after class, and find a copy of hannibal - one of the hannibal lector books. extreme, i know. (what i really want to read is hannibal rising - but i cannot afford the hardcover price.) but i crave the sort of read that provides a story about a character, suffering a most intense, and concentrated, almost unbearably painful existence. or ... the alternative is go to that used CD store on granville and look for magic & loss. what're the chances i'd find lou reed in the used cd store? pretty good i figure. hmmmm ... maybe if i make myself a reeeeeal guuuuud bargain hunter, i can buy both. i like that thought. i like it alot.



ok. now my thoughts have swirled into some lovely, silly, colourful salad of detail and sentiment. its amazing to me - i know this seems silly - to observe my own self growth, thru my actions and responses to others. sitting here in class, i hear the mutterings of students who feel frustrated by rocky course of learning a new skill or concept. it generates negative energy. they don't know what to do with said energy. they complain. they rant. the blame. instructors get the brunt of it - in much the same way children love to blame their mothers for just about everything.

and ....

i can no longer get hooked into that passive-agressive style of frustration management. so i listen, politely deflect any invitations to gossip, and suggest positive actions i would/have take in a similar situation. and i ask myself silently, why does anyone expect that their learning work entails writing the tuition cheque and showing up for class? what happened to personal responsibility for own learning? the instructor did not get hired to solve every student's difficulty. the instructor - s/he's our sherpa, guiding us thru the rugged sojourn of raising one's own learning curve. but the work - its the student's. make no mistake about it. your sherpa will guide you up the path ... but s/he will certainly NOT carry you to the summit! you must carry yourself to that height! and ... hey - sometimes the sherpa maybe needs to consult the map - what's wrong with that? nuthin, i say. nuthin at all. its good modelling - demonstrating that one's learning experiences never really end. just a little plug for instructors and teachers everywhere. we would never get to the destination we seek, if not for teacher - my thanx to you all.