In the Tradition of Bridget Jones

I'm Not Dead Yet....

In the tradition of Bridget Jones, I would like you to know on this my pre-birthday eve that I am okay being single, and my age, and that my entire body is not ~completely covered in scales underneath my clothes~ LOL. Anyway, turning the age I am and being still single hasn't been the picnic of my life, but I am doing well! I can't imagine a job I could love more, I am taking vacations and reading books, and picking up hobbies and loving my friends and family (thank you all of you for putting up with me!) and I am just fine. I have lived a full 2X years and I just, wow, get comments about my being single still at my age, so I am just here to say life is good! I love being exactly where I am at this point in my life, and you know, maybe this will be the year I meet a nice man in a reindeer sweater! LOL. So---Happy Birthday to ME!!!!!

Reflections

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Silvia Plath

-Beautiful metaphor of the mirror being the truth, and our reflections in the water, the way we see ourselves by moonlight is a false reflection, or false hopes and visions of ourself--if we let ourselves drown in those false reflections we can waste our life away. Interesting anyway huh? Kinda cool.

I am not a huge poetry person, but I am finding it more and more fascinating as I am teaching again for the second time. I think I am one of those kinds of people that the more I know the poetic devices and effects the poet tries to use, I appreciate it more than if I just try to read it, and don't understand how the poetic devices help create the mood/theme of the poem. I guess what I am trying to say is I am appreciating the craft of poetry more and more, vs. just reading it and not understanding as I have a tendency to do. But, what I really wanted to share is this really cool, and yes, mildly disturbing poem one of my students found, by Silvia Plath. Enjoy!

Sooooooo Cooooollllddddd!!!!

I'm sorry I don't have anything interesting to say other than it is soooo coooollllddd here in Utah I could die! I think I have the winter-January blues. There will be a high of 18 degrees today. Wow. And when I accidentally forgot to turn my heater on over the weekend, when I came into my classroom it was 42 degrees! I teach in a portable 1/3 a mile from the main building and it is an icebox outside! So bathroom trips, copy machine trips, printer trips, are long and frozen, not to mention trecherous. I just need a week of Hawaii-style weather and then I think I will be able to make it through the rest of the winter! I just want to hybernate in my bed and never get out! And if I have to get out, just wear big, warm sweaters that are not flattering but cozy! Maybe I will get a publishers clearinghouse check in the mail and can quit work and move to the tropics! JK. Any advice for staying cheerful in this cold mess? :)

If I had to vote Democrat....

Did anyone catch the double-header debates on Saturday night? Wow. Lost all respect for John McCain--his hits at Romney are reminiscent of my high school students. I have always had some respect for him, but now, none. Low blows to Mitt. Romney--I decided I really, really like, he is very intelligent and should run our country more like a business I think. Ron Paul, actually is well spoken, but he compared himself to Obama becuase they both are young and hip with young and hip followings (?) Hillary, wow. I felt bad for her for the first time in my life! The WUTR guy actually told her that the state of NH thinks she is unlikeable~. NO one, even Hillary deserves that on public television, or no woman anyway. And if I had to vote Deomcrat, which I won't, I'd definitely go Obama. He seems okay, or, very composed on t.v. anyway. Johnathan Edwards! Kill me now if he ends up being the president. He is greasy, and makes all of these wild-head-in-the-clouds promises! Not a fan. But suprisingly, according to the quiz that Panini has on her blog, I match up most closely with Rudy G.