It's official: I bought my ticket to Thailand

My love of thunder bites me in the ass

Picture this:
The rain is coming down hard. I realize that one of my roofline gutters is plugged up. Instead of the water coming out the proper drain spout and being led away from the house, it is overflowing the roofline gutter, falling down right next to the house, and puddling up against the cement foundation. When the house is almost 90 years old, thats a problem. First, I pulled my trashcan under the waterfall coming off the roof and then I saw my neighbor pull in. She had a step ladder. Thank god, I thought, I could pull the plug out from the gutter. But it was too short. I stood on the "this is not a step" part of the ladder and it was still too short. So I pulled a bunch of flagstones from my backyard around to the side. Stacked them, first three and then five stones tall, climbed back onto the ladder (now balanced on the paving stones) and again onto the "this is not a step" top most rung and ever so slowly - cause I could barely reach - started pulling branches and pinecones out of the gutter. (Pride salvaging attempt - I did this properly earlier this summer - borrowed a real ladder - got on top of the roof on a sunny day and cleaned both my gutters.) After a few minutes of pulling small handfulls of branches, twigs, and dirt out of the gutter it started to flow properly.

While grabbing the flagstones I had one of those non-flashback moments, when you imagine a hypothetical scene. I could just see my cousin Lauren and me sitting around and hearing a news story about some kid who fell and died when the ladder that was balanced on stones tilted over or the "this is not a step" part broke. What an idiot he must have been, we thought. Maybe not, maybe he was saving his house.

I've unplugged my computer so it doesn't get shorted out by the lightening

(There the power just blinked off and on.) We've had two strikes in the last few minutes that have made me jump. When was the last time you jumped, sitting in your chair, from lightening? There is only about one second of time passing between the lightening and the thunder. It is brilliant.

I love Patty Griffin and this song's title is Rain, so it seemed appropriate.

This just in...

I am procrastinating....again....and.....I can't wait to go to Thailand.

Gays in the military

From the Onion.

'Gays Too Precious To Risk In Combat,' Says General

From the Human Rights Campaign and Reichen Lehmkuhl. He gets off to a slow start but give him time.

Thunder

Southern California doesn't get that many thunderstorms. I've always loved them and they're one of the things I like about living in Laramie. A storm surrounds town now. I can't believe how long some of the individual lightening flashes last...... and then the thunder that builds over time, growing in volume and sometimes shaking the house. 

I keep saying how much I miss the ocean. Its power and size, the feeling of scope you get standing on the shore - I feel at once tiny in comparison to the ocean and also large -  standing on the edge looking out over something vast. It just occurred to me that an electrical storm is the closest I get to that feeling - the feeling of the immense power of nature and of my small size - other than the ocean.

Thailand

I still haven't worked out the dates but I'm planning on going to Thailand with my cousin Lauren this fall. This morning I went to public health here in town for my immunizations. I got four shots, two in each arm, and my arms still don't feel normal again. I also slept most of the day. Oh well, I can't wait...the travel bug is definitely biting.

What to choose

     I'm not completing my PhD now, I know that. Maybe later, maybe not, but not now. I will be applying to Teach for America. A few days ago I thought I would apply as soon as possible, so that I would know what I will be doing next year and could stop worrying about it. However, I recently decided that I want to keep my options open for longer. I will apply to the spring deadline of Teach for America (either way I start working for them in the summer/fall of 2008) so that I can take a longer look into community college teaching. I've long thought that I'd prefer community college teaching over high school and have only been planning the high school route because I don't really know how to enter into community college teaching.

     If I wind up teaching high school biology I'm sure I will be happy. To engage my kids more fully than I could in a community college setting, to be a part of a high school community, to help them at a time when more than academic help may be be necessary...I would find all of those things rewarding. But I'd rather not deal with the disciplinary issues, with parents and their excuses, with detention, with a place that doesn't want me to use the word 'evolution.' I'd rather teach in an environment where I can more fully challenge my students, where the entire proceedings are more adult, where I might get a chance to teach a course in ecophysiology.

     While I continue to work toward Teach for America I will also seek out and apply for teaching internships that exist at a few community colleges (Portland, San Diego, Tempe at least). In these programs interns are paired with a more experienced community college teacher. At first the intern observes and assists, but in the later terms the intern takes most of the responsibility for teaching a full course. It sounds like a perfect introduction to community college teaching.

Fortunately, I know that either way, high school or community college, it will work out.