I'm focused man ....

I don't even know where to start to e-ruminate on this past weekend staying with AH, ES and crossing trails with a cast of characters I don't think I could have possibly imagined before meeting. I need some time to recover before I decide what I want to write .... maybe I'll sleep. Haven't done that in a while.

Take a moment to read this NPR article (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5495373), written by the aforementioned AH; living in Indianola, where I'll be teaching, and teaching himself not too far away. Good guy, plays a mean harmonica.

Below is my focus paper - very open ended, our choice of topic as long as it's thesis is a relatively close cousin to the subject of education. I remembered talking about Highlander (http://www.highlandercenter.org/) withProf. Willingham last year, and seriously considering making the trek to Tennessee to enroll in one of their workshops after undergrad, so I started out laaaaate last night with that in mind. That gradually evolved, as the hours ticked towards dawn, into a more broad look at teaching for social change, or popular education, in the Highlander model; specifically, a closer look at several of the key players in its inception. I had some books on Myles Horton and, in a dorm filled with liberal-minded wannabe teachers from up north who are fixin' to "enlighten" the dirty south (count me in), it wasn't hard to find plenty of material on Freire. Alinsky is the anvil of the three, a Chicago gangster with an impeccable conscience - and was more focused with self-education rather than buying into the ideological, and fundamentally politically driven, system of education in the United States at all. Kareem you'd be proud.

Popular education is an educational technique designed to raise the consciousness of its participants and allow them to become more aware of how an individual's personal experiences are connected to larger societal problems. Participants are empowered to act to effect change on the problems that affect them (gotta love wikipedia).

Conscientizacao

The Awakening of Critical Consciousness
In Educational Forums

~ Horton, Alinksy & Freire ~

EDSE 500: Principles of Secondary Classroom Instruction

6.26.06

Historically there has been a direct relationship between social class and knowledge or opportunity, both in this country and even more apparently on an international scale, which continues to exist today in multiple manifestations. The work of leading educational activists for social justice such as Saul Alinsky, Myles Horton and Paulo Freire has shown just how implicitly “people’s knowledge and understanding of the world is the consequence of their education, regardless of its source”.[i] However, the distribution and direction of this knowledge, or lack thereof, is severely disproportional and most often dogmatic. That being said, the burden of breaching this gap between ignorance and enlightenment falls squarely on the shoulders of the educators who either work to promote existing institutional ideologies or provoke original thought and critical observation. Alinksy, Horton and Freire each have dedicated their life to the latter. Yet there also exists an “impulse for people to invent their own identities and realities”[ii] and a drive towards “personal and social liberation”[iii] which, when coupled with liberating pedagogy, can “give community people sufficient sense of their own dignity and power so that they can argue on their behalf”[iv] and truly bring about changes that will directly answer to their specific, individual needs. If education plays such a central role in shaping the society we share, then it is important to ask the same questions that those three prominent figures have asked themselves; “what kind of education, to what end, and in whose interest?”[v]

Educating for social change in America saw its beginnings in the labor college movement following World War I, when soldiers returned from Europe with worker’s educational program models in mind. The majority of the working class, primarily immigrants, found the public school system inadequately provided opportunities for the upward social mobility that our democratic structure promised and thus created American Labor Colleges “to facilitate fundamental social change on behalf of ordinary citizens.”[vi] Similarly, Alinsky organized lower-income working-class Americans around unions in urban centers throughout the country in order to gain and maintain leverage in political forums. With the prevalence of racism and sexism in this country, many other disadvantaged and discriminated against communities, generally poor and minority, likewise sought to provide educational opportunities with a social center of interest. The Highlander Center in Tennessee, “a school meant to prepare potential activists to bring about radical social change”[vii] which was founded by Horton during the civil rights movement, pioneered this growing movement of “popular education and participatory research” through experimental education for social transformation in both practice and theory. By providing the tools and capacity for underprivileged communities in the South to organize around this central ideology of progressive thinking, Highlander educators facilitated radical democratic shifts in awareness, comprehension and ultimately action. In Brazil, Freire was following a path akin to his contemporaries in the North, establishing educational practices for poor rural families and laborers that beseeched its students to think critically of their social situation and embrace democratic reform.

As organization proves necessary, then so to is an ongoing critique of the players involved and their motivations for organizing. This movement sees the community organizer as a natural instructor, or educator, whose role is not just teaching but meaningful teaching through critical questioning. The direct role of the organizer, or educator in this sense of the word, is stressed by Freire and Horton, while Alinsky veered more towards self-education and a separation from the derived and popular ideological tactics. His belief was that free from outside influence, the indelible sense of right and wrong would lead individuals towards seeking the truth out themselves. Perhaps he was expressing the short-sighted organizer that Horton feared, who organizes with a specific limited goal in mind, rather than solving the deeper problem of education first. This role of the liberating educator, or at least the existence of education, then is fundamental in this process of change and the creation of a liberated, aware social class. Freire delves into this substantially, outlining the delicate nature of ideological transformation in competition with prevailing attitudes towards education. He encourages the educator to be invested in making choices, as they ask the students to be, without compulsion or manipulation and exemplifying the power to perceive, formulate and react; to take the lessons from the classroom and apply them to a political venue. Freire explains through an example of Spanish farm workers in Germany this idea of the educator “doing with the students instead of doing for.”[viii] Then, once the people are sufficiently prepared to act, they will be equipped with the knowledge and confidence necessary to be successful.

In Leading the People, Robert Fisher and Joseph M. King examine this complex issue of ideology, or the body of ideas, doctrines and beliefs which reflect the social needs and aspirations of an individual or larger group. Rather than echoing the status quo or “inherited ideology”, they assert that progressive organizing must be centered on the notion of formulating and evaluating ideologies “which challenge existing arrangements of political and economic domination” and “mobilize oppressed groups towards fundamental change.” [ix] Whether those ideas arise from within or without the communities and individuals they come to represent is qualified through two general types; derived and inherent, popular ideology. Based on direct experience, inherent ideology reflects most accurately what the constituents themselves saw as existing problems and potential solutions while derived ideology is best articulated by outside representatives who are able to introduce radical alternatives to tradition while keeping these new concepts accessible and recognizable. In conclusion, Fisher and King seem to promote the notion that successful attempts at grassroots social education within American populism must rely on a combination of inherent and derived ideology, a mixture of community traditions and values with an informed progressive vision.

Yet even if organized and ideologically driven by inspired educators, many roadblocks have been set up to keep radical change from moving along any further than the local level. Always under attack from conservatives, the left must be willing to suffer defeats and stay on its feet. The labor colleges were closed due to their proximity with socialist and communist parties, the original Highlander campus was forced to operate illegally and eventually shut down, and Freire was labeled a traitor and imprisoned. Today, aptitude tests continue to cloak discrimination in public education. Perhaps one of the greatest threats toward educating for radical social change is the fear of cooption with the status quo, often in the form of government (or the holders of any institutional power, such as corporate heads) absorption of any opposition, where an organization finds itself defending the very institutions that it hopes to alter. If recognized, novel movements might be pressured to negotiate or compromise. With the funding necessary to actually promote change, governments can often lure independent democratically constituted organizations into cooption in this way, assure slow progress by making grass-roots movements compete for resources and/or continuously undermine their original assertions through negligent, irresponsible or discriminatory policies – all far from the participatory democratic ideal that is at the core of community organizing.

Freire, Alinsky and Horton force critical analysis of how free our speech and thought actually is, or if it is determined by greater forces that seek to influence the minds of the majority. This being the case, they rely upon their vision of a participatory progressive educational system that teaches for radical change and encourages novel ideas through empowerment and involvement. This movement often must exist on the margins of what is accepted or conventional, with a cultivation of conflict at the heart of their empirical model. Theirs is a dynamic system, as Horton articulates; “The best education is action … and the best action is the struggle for social change.”[x] To survive, these practices must continue “to be reinvented and re-clarified according to changing political and intellectual thought and social movements.”[xi] Not only is true democracy strengthened by education and learning, it is then able to meet the demands of this continued re-evaluation and constant change. However important it is to act, it is more important to first understand. This is the difference between superficial learning and tangible knowledge, between actual education and visionless training. It is not necessarily these educators’ goal to change the consciousness of each one of their students, but only to encourage them all to be conscious in their education and lives, and to take it from the dialogic to the free spaces within communities, to an organizing infrastructure, and eventually to an overwhelming social movement.

ENDNOTES:
[i] John Hurst, “Popular Education, Labor and Social Change.” In Teaching for Change: Popular Education and the Labor Movement, edited by Linda Delp, Miranda Outman-Kramer, Susan Schurman and Kent Wong. Los Angeles and Silver Spring: UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, & George Meany Center for Labor Studies, The Labor College, 2002, p. 9
[ii] Leslie Bentley. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed, 1999 [cited 2004]. p.3
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Robert Fisher and Joseph Kling. “Leading the People: Two Approaches to the Role of Ideology in Community Organizing.” Radical America 21 (1987), p. 41
[v] John Hurst, “Popular Education, Labor and Social Change.” In Teaching for Change: Popular Education and the Labor Movement, edited by Linda Delp, Miranda Outman-Kramer, Susan Schurman and Kent Wong. Los Angelese and Silver Spring: UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, & George Meany Center for Labor Studies, The Labor College, 2002, p. 9
[vi] Ibid, p. 15
[vii] “Myles Horton.” In The Citizen Action Encyclopedia: Groups and Movements that have Changed America, edited by Richard S. Halsey. Westport, CT: Oryx Press, 2002, p. 1
[viii] Ira Shore and Paulo Freire. A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education. South Hadley, MA: Bergen and Garvey Publishers, 1987, p. 177
[ix] Robert Fisher and Joseph Kling. “Leading the People: Two Approaches to the Role of Ideology in Community Organizing.” Radical America 21 (1987), p. 32
[x] John Hurst, “Popular Education, Labor and Social Change.” In Teaching for Change: Popular Education and the Labor Movement, edited by Linda Delp, Miranda Outman-Kramer, Susan Schurman and Kent Wong. Los Angelese and Silver Spring: UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, & George Meany Center for Labor Studies, The Labor College, 2002, p.13
[xi] Leslie Bentley. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed, 1999 [cited 2004], p.3

Cheers

“Jehovah Witness knock on my door to spill the word,
Seven minutes later we drunk off of that Steel Reserve.”

This blog is brought to you by 40 oz. of 211 (cheaper than bottled water); getting tilted in the back seat of my own car with AJ, RC chilling with Marley in the front, while headed southwest towards the delta netherlands and a rained-out Friday night bonfire. It also wouldn’t be possible without this red-pen I sacked from the Guyton supply closet … a poor teacher’s sticky-finger frugality. Only regret was that I didn’t inform my compatriots in paucity of the all-off special just next door.

After tonight, the weekend will be spent in the delta, for my first extended visit, with our second year hosts AH & ES and a billion hungry ‘skeeters’. I’ve been told huge amounts of spray is rained down over the area several times every year to keep them at bay (the mosquitoes, not AH or ES). In addition, the crop dusting prevalent in any large-agricultural region gets right into our water and food supply, if not taking a straight shot through our lungs. Ahhh, clean country air. Perhaps if we didn’t kill off all of their predators we wouldn’t have this problem in the first place.

Right, the assignment: inductive, collaborative paper-folding. I joke. I guess I attempted group work this week in class, but because of absences and time constraints my troupes quickly became tandems. We only have six aspiring scholars anyway, so every class is essentially an exercise in group work, as it’s generally assumed in 20-30 person classes. Our students were working on autobiographies, and had been taken through the entire process from thesis formulation to final revision. Before turning in a completed copy, I wanted them to do a little peer reviewing. Or a lot, preferably. Armed with multi-colored pens, my mercenaries were loosed onto one another’s hand-written memoirs. I guess our summer school approach to grammar has been somewhat inductive, conducting several self-guided lessons where the student’s assess the formal integrity of their own sentences on the dry erase board by what sounds/looks right vs. what sounds/looks wrong. There simply isn’t enough time under a month to build a solid foundation, but there is always time for a little interior decorating. While peer editing (after self-editing) their autobiographies, they were not asked to provide explanations as to why or how they know it is incorrect but to simply make suggestions for improvement. Then we discussed a few examples of problem sentences and elaborated on the reasons for specific, oft-repeated mistakes. It went well, and I think they get a lot more out of analyzing their own writing rather than sentences that a generic textbook or my own bland imagination can come up with. Again, this worked so well because of the small number of students we have in our class, which has enabled us to form a quick, strong rapport amongst one another. But I do see the translation into a larger classroom environment – divide and conquer. Disappointingly I opted for no paper burritos or parchment chilli-pups - but two out of three isn’t bad.

Time to stop at another gas station.

.... ain't no place i'd rather be

“Do you believe in love and
that we were meant to be?
Two words can free us,
so repeat them after me
‘I do’ from a boy in love
to a girl called Tennessee”

Bonnaroo was .... more than good. It was a nice kick, and a soft rub.But gone by too soon. I think I may have achieved short bursts of egotistical enlightenment between cheese-filled Venezuelan arepas and sun-soaked puddle naps. Or maybe I was writing someone else’s words down altogether… most likely I was just dreaming out loud.

eternity, you mean the world to me
close your eyes while I unbutton my flow
hold onto my words love, don’t say no
swallow me with these tears you cry
im falling so high, but it feels so right
im in love with my life
though she keeps letting me down

Laugh, I am. And Matisyahu blew me away: divinely. People, self included, are so easily impressionable, and that’s both terrifying and gratifying. Reminder that on a regular basis I eat, sleep, and talk too much – waste less, share more.



After allowing reality to pull me away from the tranquility of doing nothing at all but looking and listening, I followed the sunset away from Manchester and towards Nashville to pick up the beautiful AJ, who was kind enough to help keep me awake (she's got game too). With the moon came a much welcomed heavy, warm rain, providing the opportunity for me to pull off on the
hub of Hwy. 24, hit the hazards, then disappear over a brambled ridge to shower and brush in the sudden deluge amongst tall, blossoming bull thistles, the armored knights of the vegetable kingdom. I remember as a kid I used to chew on their purple flower heads, then spit purple plant juice. I only got one honk when I returned to the car in wet boxers, ducking down to change behind the passenger side door while head-strong mac trucks sped by. It felt good, refreshing, and now I’d be slightly less ‘natural’ for the ride home. Home, ha.

On Monday, after a quick nap between 4-6 AM (the most sleep I had gotten since last Thursday) RC and I made a second pilgrimage to Sunflower County. We are officially hired teachers, I think, ushered into the brotherhood by a panel of five mad hatters, and one step closer to securing an abode for the school year. Leaning towards Leland, down to two houses that were both decent – one smaller, older and cheaper than the larger, nicer and more expensive alternative. Both by the creek that dissects the town in two. Looking forward to long late night walks along the shore, past rows of wraithlike Cypress trees rising out of the water. Apparently the creek is a center of celebration on many holidays, when floats are sent downstream or displays erected halfway out and people come from all over the south to enjoy. We also hit up the library for a book sale – at ten cents a pop, $20 got me more than a few boxes that should sufficiently fill my classroom bookshelves come fall. Hopefully after this coming weekend we’ll have a house to call home.

Going to start posting all of my pictures on http://www.ddadams.smugmug.com/ that will correlate somewhat with what’s being written on here. Swing on by.

To Shanghai with Love

Ok, what’s the assignment? Questioning Techniques. Sexy.

It’s not that difficult with only six students, but I use cold-calling often and plan on continuing to do so come fall – emphasizing the importance of knowing names – and eventually really getting to know the personalities that go with those smiling mugs. Mike G. mentioned he was going to take pictures of all the kids on the first day and then study them that first night, through the first week, to learn all of the names as soon as possible. I think I’m going to be having somewhere in the vicinity of 90 young Einsteins – cake compared to the meaninglessness of art history memorization. Cold-calling (not asking for hands, but just randomly hitting bewildered gophers on the head with the precision of Payton – am I allowed to say that in Oxford? He is better.) gives the teacher the liberty of picking off easy prey: the head-nodders, day-dreamers, jokers and the miiiiidnight tokers. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Leave the mad-doggers alone, they bite. It also keeps me on my toes and being attentive to the subtle fluctuations in vibe from the pack.

Just you wait and see how stealthy I can be.

I’m also down with experimenting a little. I liked the crumbled balls of frustration technique – tossing scrap paper questions around the room, which students pick up to answer for points. Maybe an alternative to a quiz if everyone had an equal opportunity. I also remember a certain teacher of mine with a side-arm like Eckersley and a tangled mess of red hair engulfing a pair of neon green eye-glasses that never made it down to her eyes, who would hurl her smiling, yellow ‘Happy Ball’ at unsuspecting seventh-graders if she wanted an answer. I think the only person happy was her, and that usually came at the expense of those hormonal teenagers too busy staring at Suzy or checking out Joe to notice her airborne inquiry, and that usually was me.

Had my first visit to Indianola yesterday con RC. Kinda stoked. After two hours of corn, cotton and catfish farms we rolled down B.B. King Drive and into our new home. Most of the school has no indoor halls. Instead, classrooms open up to roofed walk-ways surrounding central quadrangles. Each subject has a wing. Apparently I’ll have my own classroom, vacated by a teacher who had a serious car-accident last year. Definitely going to have to call the karma police to bust out the sage in that sh*t. I’ll be coaching defensive backs, supposedly (sweet to know now that I have five offensive-line instructional videos), and met a bunch of the players and coaches stoking their pigskin passion under the brutal delta sun. They have spring ball that starts in March and runs straight through the summer until football season in August. No balls or pads can be used, but otherwise full practices are held daily with coaches. I’m no expert, but I’m certain those oblong, brown things were balls. I was told, in this context and others, that “there are rules and laws in the delta, but nobody really pays and mind to ‘em”. Same goes for basketball practice, through the summer and fall, into the winter season. In hoops they were runner-up in the state last year. Girls finished in the top four. I was told the “Ram’s Den” gets hoppin’, and cannot wait. Very jealous of RC if he gets an assistant coaching position. I might be doing golf as well, and definitely pissed the Asst. Principal off when I said incredulously, “You have a gooolf team!?” while chuckling. Actually, it was more of a guffaw (vocab word from today). The only house we looked at had fleas, but will have time to survey some others on Monday when we go back down for our district interviews.

“You’re name?” Doober Dudley

“Can you read, write and cipher some?” Yes ma’am. ‘Cept for the cipherin’.

“Are you crazy, boy?” A little bit ma’am.

“Do you go to church?” I … sometimes.

Bonnaroooo this weekend. Four hours and a full head to Manchester. Going to be a mess of, um, musically-induced exhaustion come Monday morning. Don’t worry, teacher man, I’ll be lesson planning in the midst of all those mud-lovin’ children of the moonflower, creative juices flowing fast. Will leave my clothes, and come back with a little hope.

Mea Culpa

"See where your own energy wants to go, not where you think it should go. Do something because it feels right, not because it makes sense. Follow the spiritual impulse."
~ The Kitchen Mystic

It’s 3 am and rather than writing this focus paper response which was actually due last night, if one was to be fastidious about the whole thing, I’ve been diligently trolling through other MTC blogs, leap-frogging from cynic to optimist in one graceful but lethargic click of the index. Took about a half-hour break somewhere between civil rights steam-of-consciousness, poetry slams and sage words of wisdom from second years in order to pull something sharp out of my bare sole, swat a few small, black bugs to the side, and catch up on the world news for the first time in weeks. It appears we still have a planet, it’s still ruled (poorly) by ponderous primates, and I can bet my bottom dollar that the sun will come out tomorrow, again. Persistent, that sun is.

Probably not going to sleep tonight and probably shouldn’t be admitting to such since administrators with a head-shaking power of influence over me are watching from above with their green highlighters poised and ready to swipe. I stopped to smell the magnolias, jiminy! Don’t worry, tomorrow in class we’re on the letter Zzzzzz …

Did I really just write jiminy? Yea, you did.

I’ll let my inner dialogue segue into what I think I’ve indecisively decided that I may, or may not, want to write my focus paper on: the 21st-Century sedatives, soma (in pink, baby blue or mauve capsules), tranquilizing and stifling the spirit of a million children every day. Cigarettes and booze? That’s so 1900’s. We want their minds, not only their bodies, in this brave new world. Or should I say novel?

For the past several years, while irresponsibly and ungratefully sleep-walking my way through Williams, I’ve worked in a variety of capacities, switching caps from blue to red and back again, at a residential home for at-risk adolescents in Hancock, MA. Hillcrest Educational Center has several campuses in the Berkshires, housing 30-60 children, ranging from age 7-17, at each. I chose to work at the Intensive Treatment Unit, which never had more than 11 children at one time, and “specializes in the treatment of boys and girls with extreme psychiatric/psychotic, emotional and behavior disorders. Most ITU students have experienced physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse and have become severely aggressive, sexually reactive and self injurious. Most have been in psychiatric hospitals and/or have not succeeded in other residential settings due to the severity of their needs and behaviors. Many Center students have moderate to serious learning disabilities.”

But they were good, smart kids! Without giving a dissertation, because a lesson still needs to be planned before the sun comes up and I may even iron some spiffy new clothes for tomorrow, I found that these hopeless children trapped in the system were no different than myself, aside from circumstance. Could I do the things I was asking these distraught, scared, lost little boys and girls to do on a daily basis if I were in their shoes? I really don’t think so. Especially if I was being force-fed a cocktail of personality suppressing skittles three times a day like they are; drugs of names I can’t pronounce, origins I don’t want to know, and side-effects that nobody accurately understands. Their spark is all but burnt out, their innocence left in the womb, their faith in such an unfair world justifiably shattered. The cracks are growing wider and swallowing more than society can afford to lose. If you ask me, one is too much. But I’m sure by now you’ve clearly recognized the established idealistic motif of a naïve crusader (don’t worry, I’m still plenty selfish).

Yes, this is my response to a focus paper … ready? Now!

These pills we pop into the mouths of developing children, experimenting with their lives for profit, are a means of control. Society, the government, the maniacal minority; choose your semantic. Someone or something very large is responsible for this quieting of wills, assumedly free, slaying dragons and dreams to the applause of the paying public. It’s not just in residential care facilities across the country, but in public schools, in private schools, in kitchens and bathroom cupboards hiding behind white-picket fantasies and in the pockets of every demographic from you to me. Why are we afraid of ourselves? Take off the tethers, return to the pastures with the flock and wander from field to field at your own discretion.

I spent some time teaching and tutoring at the Montessori in Santa Cruz, CA, and this is what I like the most about their system: the implied freedom of academic pursuit, initiated by the individuals. The opposite of control. This arena of mutual respect empowers the child and instills priceless self-confidence. This puts the responsibility on the student for their own education. You can lead a horse to the edge of the fountain of knowledge, but that horse needs to read the words written in the water if he wants his thirst quenched. Teachers cannot drink for their students, but can hold the cup and refill it when empty. This “self-creating” process that JW discusses in her focus paper is a paradigm I’d like to attempt in my classroom. Education should not only be valued and desired, but fun. I’ll be there, choking myself with a tie, eagerly waiting to provide the resources and help when needed, and gently pushing that stubborn horse down the stairs. Investment comes quicker when it’s voluntary, providing a stimulating and encouraging environment exists. Practice patience as an administrator of education above all. By dragging reluctant or ‘slow’ students along with the strong majority current, you are turning them off from the passion of discovery and learning. By pushing them off the dock into the deep end, rather than letting them jump in themselves, or locking them in a unlit room to overcome their fear of the dark, you are not showing them that they are safe and that there is no reason to be afraid.

Montessori espoused her idea that “backwards children needed special education rather than medical treatment” Pills are a crutch - a cheap, Wal-Mart Sponge Bob band-aid covering a gaping psychological wound so that nobody happening by would get queasy at the sight of pain or discomfort. I am also in general agreement with her basic tenet that the best way to learn is to teach, hence the mentorship aspect of mixing grades/ages together. However, today the Montessori system has gotten far, far away from those in need. As always, those that can afford a private school tend to be those that need it the least.

All education is special, and most doesn’t happen inside of the classroom.

Forgive me if my tenses don’t match, my verbs don’t agree or my thoughts don’t sing hallelujah on your screen. My eyes are taking micro-naps in between thoughts, and at this point there is plenty of vacant space. Also, sorry if I became disjointed at the end, or started that way. The buzz of my fluorescent desk lamp is sounding a little bit like ‘Light My Fire’ and I think I dozed off after .... right, tomorrow’s lesson, the letter Zzzzzz ....

Bible Beltin'

"Well, I don't go to church on Sunday
Don't get on my knees to pray
Don't memorize the books of the bible
I got my own special way"

Just wanted to briefly salute my first blog, a recap of week one in Miss'ippi - initial impressions and all that jazz. Or blues, maybe. The people in the MTC program are .... interesting. An extremely intelligent and eclectic mix. I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know them all better in the coming days, months and years. The weather is hot and wet, the campus is very pretty and pretty large, covered in magnolia trees (particularly in 'the grove') and red-brick buildings. The downtown square, surrounding the old oxford court house, has some great bookstores, restaurants and a classic, southern ambiance.



... my eyelids are heavy, morning birds are chirping and I still have work to do. Buzzing from my opening week in the MTC, several days spent playing catch-up that I'm still a few steps behind of, naturally. Can see all sorts of MTC info at our site (http://www.olemiss.edu/programs/mtc/) - including participant bios, videos, pictures, links to other blogs, etc. Couzapalooza put me to bed last night with a full stomach and stories to tell (including a pajama'ed trip to grab some great mexican food), and a baptist pastor with a steely stare and a thunderously accusing delivery woke me right up in the morning. A sunset over Sardis Lake and some friends from Williams sealed the weekend, before I could settle down for some silence under a full moon and .... write.

Still the same old song, just a different verse.