Changes

Last week was an interesting week, introspectively. I feel like it's the start of something great, like a change is on the horizon, but I don't know exactly how the change is likely to manifest, so I've been thinking of a few common changes that I know take place so as to prepare myself for whichever precedent I'm liable to follow.

The Pupa in the Chrysalis: Metamorphosis is not a bad thing, but the process is often slow, delicate, and leaves one vulnerable to attack. The pupa is the interim stage between the caterpillar and the butterfly, when the insect prepares a haven, designed for the twofold purpose of protection from enemies, and privacy for the transformation it is to undergo. Sometimes I feel like the self-imposed isolation I endure is my chrysalis, my cocoon, from which I will soon emerge, transformed.

The Diamond in the Rough: A much slower process, but a much richer exchange wherein, through immeasurable time, coal is compressed, condensed, crushed, with the weight of the world bearing down on it for the wait of the world, into a gem prized for the [supposed] rarity, clarity, and color of the process caused by immense geothermal forces where the greater the pressure borne, the purer the result birthed when unearthed, cut, polished, and set. It could be that I am only beginning to bear a particular burden and that the end ahead is something unforeseen but all the more beautiful for being so.

Changes of State (of Matter): Like ice, water, and steam, all matter has three hypothetical states in which they can exist (or so my limited understanding grasps the concept, though I'm sure there must be exceptions I'm too ignorant to cite, but my last science class was in my early years at Mayfield... so). These changes can happen relatively quickly, and with equal frequency, given the right catalyst for the change to occur, usually heat, or the reduction thereof. I'm not sure if the end result would be a harder or softer me, more or less pliable, I could find arguments for both, and a desire for either, but I'm equally unsure how much the coming metamorphosis has to do with my present, my past, my desires or my needs and least of all what say I'll have in the end manifestation.

There are myriad other illustrations I could use from the changing of the seasons to simply changing one's mind, but I've been waxing wordy lately and your patience is a virtue I don't want to consume too much of here and now. Whatever happens I think the important distinction is to make sure that it is understood that change is a good thing, almost always, but certainly that which I'm anticipating in the days (weeks, months, years) ahead.

- Foster

Nuclear Tests, Swine Flu, Immunity, and Teaching Metaphor to Children

I just heard that North Korea has been performing underground nuclear tests and that most of the world is not all that happy about it. Perhaps I should watch the news more, but I doubt it. Anyways, Obama's miffed, South Korea's a little perturbed, and I'm sure other countries care to some degree, they're just not mentioned on the MSN homepage hotmail sends me to when I logout.

Still, at the school, the nuclear tests haven't been raising as much concern as the swine flu epidemic. Evidently a few foreigners have brought a resurgence of the dreaded disease into the city not a few massive blocks from where I teach, and since foreigners do nothing but fornicate and languish in each others' sordid, endemic, parasitic hovels or the equally infested hangout hotbeds of diseases frequented in our spare time, we've become greater pariahs of late. So until further notice we're being subjected to daily temperature checks, have been issued filtered face masks, and it's been recommended to us that when we're not at school we confine ourselves to our apartments. The jokes on them though, I've pretty much been doing that anyway.

It not all bad, however; I've been working on a new story idea and this little hysteria has played directly into inspirational material for the plot. The working title is "Immunity". I'll let you ponder the rest for now. At least until I get a little further along and post it on my writing blog:

http://fosterink.blogspot.com/ (I'm trying to work more [shameless] plugs in.)

Stuff in the classroom seems to progressing relatively well; by that I mean I'm still working and haven't been fired yet. I've been teaching poetry to third graders for a few classes now... as though poetry isn't hard enough to get in one's native language. Still, I feel like I'm making headway. The word for the day was Metaphor. Since we've already covered imagery, simile, personification, alliteration and rhyme scheme, I figured it was time. One of their worksheets had a list of words that the two kids had to create metaphors for. The first was "star".

"So, I can write, 'sparkling flower'?"

I'd never heard of a sparkling flower so I thought about it for a second. It was a second that ignited a whole conceit! If a star is a sparkling flower, then space can be the garden in which it grows, the milky way the water nourishing it and the other plan(e)ts in the garden's midst. The possibilities were endless. I got excited and tried to share this with the blank faces looking back at me and finally decided that, yes, a sparkling flower would do fine. My writing on the matter is far from over.

From the mouth of babes...


- Foster